


What lurks in the shadows

by Ira_Fenici



Series: A new perspective and a different ending [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Light Angst, One-sided Kankurou/Haruno Sakura, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-The Last: Naruto the Movie, Rare Pairings, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ira_Fenici/pseuds/Ira_Fenici
Summary: There are myths that come from the far east outside the Land of Wind: they speak of a wind that smells like rotten leaves and earth. It brings something that waits and tortures patiently, until the prey falls into a trap.Gaara of the Sand is not aware of it, or perhaps has never given it importance. For this, he finds himself having to deal with what lurks in the shadows.But it's difficult to survive when your very own soul betrays you. Sunagakure, its people, risk a lot and have little time before the sandstorm hits them.If the arrival of the Sixth Hokage of Konohagakure and his delegation is fortunate, only time will tell: Yamanaka Ino will be able to free the Kazekage from his fate, or perhaps she will die trying.After all, the greater good has always been more important than a single ninja.[Post-Fourth Shinobi World War, Pre-The Last: Naruto the Movie. GaaraIno, some hints of ShikaTema. Hint of a one sided KankuSaku. Update every... let's try month]
Relationships: Gaara/Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru/Temari
Series: A new perspective and a different ending [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022197
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter I: Nightmares in the moonlight

** What lurks in the shadows **

** Chapter I:Nightmares in the moonlight **

****

The desert of the vast Land of Wind could look the same as any other evening. The blue of the night clothed the dunes in a silvery contrast with the full moon. Although it was autumn, in the rest of the world, only the drops of dew between the needles of the mistletoe cacti bathed the atmosphere. But over that arid nation hovered a spectre that had never died out.

It was a breath of fresh air, almost a cold wind, with a faint smell of damp earth and dry leaves rotting in the mud. It came from the east, from the deciduous woods of the Land of Fire, from a time as ancient as the myths. It stirred the usually immobile atmosphere and was so unusual that it plunged into burrows, hidden under an ocean of sand, prey and predators. They were used to the strict dictates of an inhospitable habitat, but they could do nothing against the power of the unknown.

It all seemed quiet, _but it wasn't_.

Gaara of the Sand felt that same irrational sensation. He passed through the nation he had sworn to protect the day he became Kazekage of Sunagakure. However, he looked enormously like that little boy who had sworn to destroy the world early in his ninja life.

He was standing, motionless. On the wax face were outlined the thin brushstroke of the mouth and the contour of the very black dark circles, which shaped the blue gaze, wide open, devoid of shades. Like the statue of an authoritative leader such as he was, Gaara was mute, blind and deaf except for his thoughts. They rummaged under the dishevelled hair, like a living flame.

The same warmth had the impressions, _the nightmares_ , which slid to the sides of his gaze. They wriggled with the dry tongues of sand he was surrounded by and on which he travelled, skidding on a carpet of sand that levitated a few feet above the ground. The blue aura of the chakra, from which his slender body was enveloped, glistened, adhered to that material so abundant in the desert and shaped it according to his commands, which were imparted by thoughts, without the tongue having to utter a word.

That was Gaara: he kept everything inside and what came out of the tight meshes of concentration tormented him, with doubts from which it was impossible to escape. His siblings, even his shinobi, would have guessed it in an instant by observing that undulating pace, the confusion by which he yanked the sand under his feet, changing trajectory, while not revealing even a symptom of uncertainty in his face.

By contrast, the thoughts of the strongest ninja in the whole nation didn’t shift. They returned to the beginning of that night like all the others. To the full moon he had admired since his innocent, _nefarious_ , childhood. To the cold iron of the balcony railing under his slender fingers. To that vague excitement for the next morning, where he would have welcomed the new Hokage of Konohagakure and his delegation. To the fear that the excitement for that meeting could have slipped out of his lips without control, betraying the shameful presence of an emotion.

That was Gaara: he jealously guarded his little inner world. His people of Sunagakure, his nation, _his_ splendid full moon, knew that. They felt it without him having to utter a word.

For this, just for this, the moon had informed him. It communicated with the Kazekage in a language of which he was the only connoisseur. It could warn him by a banal beam of light towards the evening shadows. That man, still looking like an adolescent, had got the message: he had followed the silver rays noticing an arabesque of strange shadows. They were made up of rocks, houses and other objects that he hadn’t noticed for years. At first, Gaara of the Sand had almost believed that that celestial body wanted to cheer him up before fear weighted him down.

Then he had seen _that profile_. Feet, legs, torso, arms and hands in the dark. And a face in dim light wearing the smile of a monster.

His guts had fallen on him as if they had never belonged to him. Wrapped in a sudden grip of terror, upset and surprise with no joy, his breath had broken. He had remained like that, stiff, for an incalculable time. A few drops of sweat had slid down his forehead and he realized he hadn't blinked since he had stared at _that shape_. With an enormous effort, worthy of using an extremely powerful technique, Gaara had closed his eyes. He had breathed. Nausea had swiped him. A sob had shaken the lump in his throat. Then, with a cautious calm, he had peered at the shadows from half-closed lashes.

_ That figure _ was no longer there. How Gaara knew, how he had been able to understand it, he had no idea. He had stared at the village around him and everything had seemed normal to him, _again_ : the buildings touched by the caress of the moon, the imposing natural walls, surrounding the perimeter of the village, in the dark. The ninjas patrolling above the rooftops, people capable of transforming themselves into artificial shadows that faded into the natural light.

The moon had no longer illuminated anything like that. The admonitions were gone in its crystal ball contours. It almost seemed that the Kazekage's discomfort was derived from a harmless trick of the senses, from the turmoil that harboured in him. However, Gaara was not a man to admit the frailties of the human soul.

He had left, hiding his presence from the ninjas on guard, even evading the siblings' patrol tour. He loved them with all his heart, yet he dared not reveal anything to them.

_ That was simply Gaara _ .

There, in solitude, immersed in that boundless sea of  sand, Gaara tasted that strange smell of rotting forest and wondered where it came from. The more he chased it, the more it escaped, turning into a scent that barely touched his nostrils. He truly believed that his senses were dealing with a sudden stress out of his understanding. He was afraid of it: his heart tolled quickly in his chest and, for an instant, he doubted himself. He was about to surrender to his own weaknesses.

Then that world he knew since he was a child, submerged by the only element that had ever welcomed him since birth, understood the delirium of his worries. Like a parent who would do anything for his only child, the wilderness took pity on him.

So it got up, showing what was lurking in the shadows.

In the beginning, it was a dart of sand. It emerged from the flat line of the desert, without any atmospheric event having triggered it. Gaara didn't notice. He sensed that it was traveling to pierce his skull only in that lapse of time where anyone would have died with no way out.

Filtered by the inhibiting adrenaline, the Kazekage saw that bullet with a clear and precise trajectory: it was smooth on the surface, it bolted without uncertainty. It was accompanied by a dry rustle and that penetrating smell of which Gaara had a vague memory, due to a diplomatic trip to the Land of Fire a few months earlier. It was reaching the tip of his nose. Then Gaara smiled. One of the corners rose in a slightly cruel grimace.

_ “Pathetic” _ a flash of the past crossed that inaudible whisper, but the ninja knew with certainty that even that mysterious, _inept_ assailant had heard it. The _sand of Gaara_ went between him and the dart. It was the blow that died in his place. The Kazekage heard the sound of dust evaporating, smashed against a barrier more substantial than it. His eyelashes quivered: a few specks had crept into the sides of his gaze, but he didn't care.

The desert peeked out from behind the sand curtains from which he had been protected. It opened to show him a new deafening calm. It was always placid, it was always _empty_ , however the ninja clearly perceived the _humiliation_.

_ “Me, who’s alive thanks to the sand ... Were you expecting something different?” _

__

Gaara spoke with no mood or expression, but his smile was wide on his thin lips. For the first time, he took a step forward on his carpet of sand.

“You're quite unprepared, or maybe you're just a silly kid ... Who else would have challenged _Gaara of the Sand?_ ” the voice dropped, ice over the arid country of which he was the _true_ master. He was insolent, he was indifferent.

He was _outrageous_ to anyone who was making fun of him like that.

“You've awakened something you can't control, _brat_. Prepare to die” once again, Gaara felt that primal instinct, which all the legendary ninjas were endowed with, flicker in his stomach. They were impulses totally devoid of logic, from which he drew the knowledge that he had guessed something beyond his understanding.

That feeling caused him another wave of nausea, despite the self-confidence he showed and the smile he had put on after a long, _too long_ , time. It did not even seem that his whisper was addressed to the enemy in the shadows. It had escaped, so naturally, from his control: a river that flowed towards the sea ignoring the obstacles on the path. Euphoria and fear mingled in his throat.

Then he felt the sand tremble under his feet and the thrill in his gut turned into pincers. Gaara stifled a sigh of nausea, eyes wide open on a landscape that jolted with him.

_ How in hell… _

__

He realized it all in a flash: he sensed that stench that soured his nostrils, the chills that shook his heart and guts. Some sand was invading his mouth and eyes, turning him into a blind man who lacked the other senses, if not pain.

A strange wind, with that nauseating smell, blurred the sky with the sand, turning it into a swamp, from the crystalline sea that it was. Gaara knelt on his sand carpet and felt it soft around his legs. It was turning into a protective cocoon against his will, but guided from his panic. The sand only knew how to defend him, after all.

_ And devour me ... _

Gaara could no longer hold back the vomit. While he was witnessing his body throwing out all the anxiety and fatigue that he did not know had retained until that moment, he heard the roar with which the desert was venting its frustration: a sandstorm!

_ “What ... have I ... released?” _

__

The Kazekage felt, for the first time, a wet sensation on his cheeks, but it was for a few moments: it was drained just like the remains of his stomach. He felt very few things, apart from the sand that was slowly submerging him: the deafening madness of the heart, the acid in the mouth, the absence of air in the lungs. Yet, he felt a strange pleasure in the familiar caress of _his_ element, even if it disgusted him more than anything else.

_ I want ... I want to leave! _

With fury, he tried to govern the only thing that had always listened to him, but it continued in its work: it swirled in the wind and sank him, under an ocean of sand. Then he understood.

The electric rush of adrenaline shook him long before he heard _that voice_.

_ “You haven’t released anything, Kazekage ... You have only returned to your nature, of one who knows how to kill and does it to survive ... What could be more important?” _

“No, you’re ... you’re an illusion ... Something that wants to hurt me!” Gaara had lost his appearance, melted by the flame of a candle: that face of wax dripped with sweat and stubborn tears, which had not been oppressed by the grasp of the sand. But he could not get to his feet: he stared at the sand with which his wrists were dragged deeper, his fingers brushing the shadow of that mysterious _, diabolical_ , opponent.

_ For whom are my thoughts? _

Only a few reflections flickered in the thought enmeshed by the senses. He thought he could see woman's arms in the sandy tongues around which he was wrapped. The delicate contour of a hug he could not possibly remember.

_ “Why ... why are you doing this to me?”  _ He chewed a mixture of sand, pain and sickening serenity: the lack of air was taking his spirit out of his body. He had sunk to the ground, in that arid cradle of which he knew the conformation, but from which he could not draw any heat.

It was with enormous effort that he saw the outlines of two legs that bent close to him. But that monster smile, no, he would never forget it. It communicated with him and confronted him with reality, with what had lurked in the shadows and had never abandoned him. He swallowed the scratchy mouthful of sand and saliva and nearly choked, disgusted and numb.

_ That smile  _ simply spoke.

_ “Because you hate me like the day you saw me in the mirror, but I don't know what to do with such a useless feeling: for me there is only love ... The infinite love I feel for you.” _

The Kazekage winced before passing out. The last emotion was that of a criminal who had also condemned the people dear to him with his actions.

Gaara of the Sand, the child who had survived to die at the hands of his adult persona, smiled without joy: he had never met it in the course of his short life.

_ “Now that I've done everything in my power ... May the world know the evil it has done to me.” _

That desert that had served him so much and, perhaps, loved him, revealed itself to that child, locking the Kazekage in a prison of wind and sand. Thus, the eyes of the Gaara he had been could see the blue and golden profile of the Land of the Wind, obscured by the storm that advanced with him.

He walked towards the tall figure of the rock walls that surrounded Sunagakure.

**_ Continues in Chapter II: Smell of rotten leaves and earth _ **


	2. Chapter II: Smell of rotten leaves and earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the ninja of Konohagakure arrive to help Sunagakure... and where Temari is taken away by a strange smell of guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while ... but it has arrived! I apologize for the delay: first year in a new home with snow and rain... I'll need to get used to it!  
> I also would like to thank anyone who has read the first chapter and has found it enjoyable: the situations unfold a little slowly. I'm trying to build a context, although I could be more direct… Over time I will try to improve!  
> Enjoy the read!

** Chapter II: Smell of rotten leaves and earth **

The inhabitants of Sunagakure understood that a sandstorm was coming. Accustomed as they were to the desert, in which they had matured like cacti on inaccessible rocks, they recognized it immediately thanks to that sudden change in pressure that had heated the air on their bare arms, to that scratchy touch of the particles of sand on the nostrils.

When they saw the clear horizon stained with a line of haze, they suddenly grasped the gravity of the situation: only a few hours remained before the sandstorm poured into the natural basin where the village stood, filling it with dust and death.

For that reason, the ninja had run to the Suna Council, because they wanted to create a barrier of chakra that opposed the advance of the sand, giving them enough time to save the civilians. Baki commanded them with an iron fist, checking that not even one person was left unaided. Even the weak who, in the past, he would have despised.

For that reason, the two older siblings of the Kazekage had reached his Residence in a hurry, to throw him out of bed, wondering how it was possible that the man capable of perceiving every slightest variation of the desert, had not yet sensed the danger.

_ Precisely _ for that reason, that untouched bed in front of Temari and Kankurō appeared a greater threat than the destruction that was arriving to hit them.

They gazed at it as if Gaara was there, asleep, and the folded corners of the sheet, creased by the rising wind, were brushing against that emaciated, sick face, or those slender arms that stood out inside the wide tunics he often dressed.

The same fabric Temari had seen dangling from the Kazekage's wrists that evening, as he dragged his trembling hands over his forehead, furrowed with a strange cold sweat. She thought she saw him there again, that little and pestiferous brother of hers, the third man from whom she would always get troubles, yet who couldn’t stop loving with all of herself.

She felt that strong emotion clinging to her chest in that instant. Regret forced her to bite her lower lip, the only luxury she could afford.

Kankurō refused even that slim consolation. “ _Temari_ … what do we do?” The elder sister wouldn’t have known what to answer to that voice drained of any nuance, a covering mask like the traditional paint that her brother strewed on his face. The ninja looked at her without really seeing her, with those dark brown eyes and black clothes looking like parts of his puppets, so imperceptible was the movement of his breath and empty his stare.

Temari swallowed deeply, but recovered from her mental confinement by returning to that wind from which their clothes were being yanked, louder than before. She returned to that urgency that had pushed them into the only lair in which they believed there was refuge and that, however, had betrayed them. Suddenly, she noticed a strange scent that filled Gaara's room: a rotting smell, from which she recalled memories that heightened that tremendous feeling of regret.

Then she put on her indifferent appearance, to fit that of the family member she had lived with since she could remember.

“We do what we must, _Kankurō_. _We just…_ We just protect the village” the voice with which she answered, cold, hurt her. She could feel that unmistakable ferrous taste on her tongue, even if she hadn't lost even a drop of blood.

The putrescent smell chased them as they left without making a sound, like the shadows they were.

_ Thus, the sandstorm came _ . Temari and Kankurō had time to inform the Suna Council of their leader's disappearance. They were able to participate in the preparation of the chakra barrier that would protect the town. They had moved in time, ignoring the fear by which their bowels had been gripped and the frenzy of the soul. They had done everything in their power before the storm hit them.

In the beginning, none of them wanted to doubt how much they knew about the desert and its atmospheric phenomena.

That dry storm knocked hard on the raised barrier. It hit so hard that it forced the ninjas specialized in chakra control to make sudden changes to maintain the protection. Some were taken away from their task, with half-open lips from which a trickle of blood oozed, due to fatigue, or with eyes turned upward, about to faint. Despite these bizarre signs, the villagers continued to place an unconditional trust in the work of the ninja.

On their side, after all, they had _the blood_ of the current Kazekage and the previous one: Temari and Kankurō were two copies of their parents and, although they had very few similarities with their younger brother, they worked tirelessly just like him. Temari glided above her steel fan, the hands and the folds of the instrument stained with blood to evoke the faithful kamatari, beasts skilled in the use of chakra and winds, with which she had made a pact many years before.

On the ground, the younger brother darted from one part of the village to the other, the puppets followed his commands led by the experience of a lifetime, looking for anyone who hadn’t realized the danger. They were the perfect synthesis of the protections that the villagers had received all those years. _They couldn’t, in any way, doubt them_.

They didn't know. They couldn’t guess it in any way: the masks of the two siblings, one composed of painting and the other of pure willpower, were a mirage behind which there wasn’t an oasis of peace, but the desert, arid and full of its dangers.

Temari had suspected that Kankurō had grasped something, however she knew she was the only one to whom that terrible smell had called a bottomless pit of memories. The blood covered her arms and the torn flesh burned in contact with the air against which she lashed flying on her fan, but _she wasn’t any more in her body_. She saw the bottom of that free fall. A revealing, _or deceptive_ , light was sitting there.

_ That unbearable smell ... Rotten leaves and earth. _

__

That strange reflection surfaced from the subconscious and stunned her worse than the pain or the concentration. She brought her teal gaze back to that past from which she hoped to be gone forever, but which returned to haunt her.

She didn’t realize that the sandstorm _had understood that_. A suspicious screech rose above her and, imprisoned as she was in her thoughts, Temari barely saw a few grains of sand sipping from the ceiling of the barrier.

The woman was completely captivated by that journey where she was again a child, with a face of naive bravado. She lost herself in those flashes of past sensations: she perceived the warm sun of a season always the same as itself, the sweaty skin inside the light clothes and the aura of extraordinary stubbornness in which she was enveloped, _in which she felt capable of conquering the world_...

On the light at the bottom of the memories’ well, a shadowy figure emerged. She pursued it with the obstinacy typical of childhood, longing for the thrill of an adventure that would allow her to obtain the flattery of her teachers, the proud glances of her father...

Just as that deceptive half-light dissolved, revealing the skinny little body of a child, the kunoichi realized that there wasn’t water on the bottom of the well: it was the reflection of the stones that had deceived her so easily.

_ Gaara?! _

The same little brother she had hoped to embrace in her thoughts. The same red hair, the same cyanotic complexion, the same thin fingers. _That face wearing the smile of a monster._

Fear gripped her guts. From the depths of her memories, she drew a distant voice, the salvation for when that _diabolical little brother_ of her had tried to challenge her right to survival. She even remembered her nanny's knotty hands caressing her dishevelled hair, imposing order in her fears and throwing a little hope over them.

_ “You'll see, little Temari... The wind of rotten leaves and earth will come and I know it’ll take him away... We won't have to deal again with that...” _

Then, with a deafening sound of shattering glass, the chakra barrier broke. Dust and death poured into the village that Gaara, Temari, and Kankurō had sworn to protect. The kunoichi closed her gaze. She didn't have time to do anything.

_ So that's true… _

The thought collapsed on her as well as the sand. She felt the weight of its death grip on her lungs. She saw the arid darkness of the dust entering her eyes. She gasped, the croaking sound of her panting filling her ears. At the edge of her gaze, many blinding points of light shone. She thought she saw Kankurō's devastated face.

She realized her own superficiality.

_ “Sister!” _

The brother's cry was a light veil, swallowed by the dry roar of the sand. Temari clung to it like a lifeline, desperately seeking the strength to react. The blood burned on her arms and drew the kamatari to it, guiding them to the point where that whirlwind was dragging her, _lower and lower_ , away from her element.

She saw those poor creatures following her, trying to pierce the thick dust, like a rock wall, yet that storm had a will of its own, stronger and more terrible than a banal blood pact. Temari wasn’t surprised when she saw the kamatari bound by the currents of that dry whirlpool, or when she gazed at the clouds of smoke they produced just before disappearing, breaking the bond with her to survive. She too, after all, had feared that someone close to her would tear her life away.

_ “Gaara ... what have I done to you… my little brother” _

The guilt died in her coughs. The flight in the sandstorm ended. She crashed to the ground, swallowing dirt and dust. She couldn’t even feel the impact: her survival instinct was strained towards that oxygen absent in the atmosphere.

_ It's all useless… _

She collapsed on the ground, unable even to cry: the sand was draining her completely. It roared undaunted around her, preventing her from understanding how much destruction it was bringing to her home. _To her people_.

_ I should have... I should have done more for you all. _

Temari's breaths had become short and full of sand. The eyes were losing vitality. Just when she was about to give in to what was lurking in the shadows, the past resurfaced again, but this time to comfort her.

_ It would have been nice to see the dawn with you... my little piece of heart... _

She almost laughed at that thought. She imagined the sharp face of the man she loved, his elongated eyes and his bushy black hair. It seemed to her that she was watching him there, _with her_ , while he shook her with his apparently delicate arms. She even smelled the unmistakable taste of cigarette up her nostrils and that dry, _desperate_ voice of his, which boomed in her ears with a muffled sound.

_ Yeah… I almost wished to see that bush of hair on a child's head… _ Temari muttered a laugh. She couldn't even lift her arm to caress the slightly wet cheek of the mirage from which she was rescued.

Then, that boy with the sharp black eyes of a fox pressed his smoky-tasting lips to Temari's mouth, letting new air flow into her. She arched her back, stunned. The heart beat faster: the man was pressing his hands against her chest, giving a new vital rhythm to the organ that threatened to stop. Temari widened her eyes. She hadn't realized she had returned to reality.

She sat up and the world began to spin around her.

_ “Don’t move!” _ there he was, Shikamaru, next to her! Temari's teal eyes stared at him without really seeing him. She felt only the grip of his warm hands against the cold skin of her arms and the force with which he laid her back on the ground. Something gleamed in the corners of that fool's eyes.

“Damn, Temari! Kankurō told us everything, did you want to kill yoursel?!”

_ Kankurō?! _

The boy's question became less important. Temari stood up on her elbows, ignoring Shikamaru's protests. Her head was ceasing to spin and, now, she looked at the situation better than before.

The sandstorm was still raging, but it was no longer _with them_. It was beating fiercely, again, against the chakra barrier, over which it lay and continued to obscure the village. The bluish light of the chakra allowed her to clearly distinguish the houses and villagers, all free from the rule of the terrible atmospheric phenomenon.

_ “What ... What happened?” _ she asked Shikamaru back, but before he opened his mouth to scold her, a voice caught her attention. _“Oh my god, Temari!”_ now that the roar of the storm was muffled, the woman could hear the swift footsteps and the familiar voice of someone else.

_ “Ino ...” _ it was really the kunoichi of Konohagakure who reached them at the edge of the barrier perimeter, even if the latter found it hard to recognize the woman from Suna: the sister of the Fifth Kazekage lay with twisted sandy blond hair due to the wind. Cracks appeared on the lips and she had a face white as a sheet. The black dress was tattered, showing bruises on the legs and arms. Her chest was trembling, as if she was learning to breathe normally again. A vein closed in Ino's head and she gave the teammate an irritated gaze.

“Shikamaru, _you’re such an idiot_! You should have called me immediately! " she finally blurted out, vigorously moving the boy away and approaching the convalescent woman's side. Her hands were stretched to her heart. A veil of chakra encircled her palms, oozing healing energy from her breast to the rest of her body.

The woman took a deep breath and she moaned: air and blood circulated fast and, suddenly, she felt her strength returning. “I ... I got distracted” Shikamaru's peep was so tender that Temari couldn't resist: she looked for his hand and squeezed it tightly. She immediately recognized the callus on his thumb derived from the lighter. He reciprocated her grip and approached her, his cheeks pink with embarrassment and other emotions difficult to distinguish.

"Don’t stress him, Ino ... He was just worried" the girl snorted, but dared not say anything else. She and Shikamaru understood perfectly well what it felt like to be in front of a loved one on the verge of death.

They remained silent for a few moments, giving Temari time to fully came to her senses. Then they helped her up and set out for the improvised headquarters where Baki, Kankurō and the Sixth Hokage of Konoha were discussing.

“The storm surprised us two hours after we camped: I was doing my watch when I saw a strange dark line on the horizon, but that _brainy other there_ didn't want to listen!”

“ _You’re so troublesome_ , Ino ...” the man replied, pulling Temari closer to him, his cheeks pink with embarrassment, again. In response, the kunoichi of Suna could not stop grinning: she knew well that boy, with a perpetually tired expression, and the constant bickering he and his teammate did. She found it funny the way he reacted to such a simple teasing and, if it had been up to her, she would have done it every day of her life, just to see his face like that.

_ If only I were so bold with you too, my little brother... _

That embrace that wasn’t given came back vividly to wound her. This time, she was the one to hold closer Shikamaru, clinging to his side with strength. He understood, or at least grasped what was behind that absent look of hers. _You’re always too good at understanding what is going through my head..._ Temari thought, feeling the man's fingers caressing her shoulders, giving her a minimum of relief.

However, the sensation disappeared almost immediately in sheer embarrassment when the woman caught sight of Ino's sly gaze from which they were observed _very carefully_.

“Moral of the story: the Sixth Hokage arrives near us, says that I'm right and orders us to run here! We had to cross a dozen kilometres inside a chakra bubble where we could breathe freely.” 

“Does this mean that our village is surrounded by the sandstorm?” Temari was grateful that Ino hadn't rub it in with her jokes. She liked to tease them, but the kunoichi of Konoha had understood that the suffering of Temari wasn’t only due to a close encounter with death. Her gaze was a rough sea, where more doubts than thoughts were raised among the dark waves.

“Yeah, even if it's kind of strange… We studied the climate of the Land of Wind to prepare for the travel… This wasn’t supposed to be a period for sandstorms! I think the Hokage knows something and wanted to talk to your brother immediately and _your very old teacher_. “

“ _Damn it Ino,_ can’t you be serious for a moment?” Shikamaru rolled his eyes, but didn’t have the strength to insist: all around them they observed the damages that the scarce presence of the sandstorm had caused to the village. Shreds of wall fell from the edges of the buildings. Medical-nin ran through the village streets, carrying stretchers with the wounded, or cradling terrified-looking children in their arms. Fresh blood was dripping from their clothes and skin. It was quite understandable that her friend was trying to distract herself from the situation, which evoked the destruction of war.

_ You too... you’re trying to escape something too, huh tough girl? _

Shikamaru scrutinized her in those moments in which she wouldn’t have paid attention, gazing at her hair and wanting to caress them. He restricted himself to support that soul that seemed to be ready to fall apart at any moment and thought of the Hokage, of that black and impenetrable gaze with which he had guided them up there, hurling a string of purple lightning against the wind and the sand, disappearing between the coils of the storm to come out more serious than ever.

_ Hokage ... what did you see in the shadows _ ?

Questions to which he would soon receive an answer.

The proximity of the headquarters was announced by some confusion and unpleasant screams _. “Kankurō!”_ Temari exclaimed, suddenly freeing herself from the grip of Shikamaru. She run towards the origin of the screams, still hidden by the figure of a building. _“Wait!”_ Shikamaru caught up with her immediately, but the woman seemed to have recovered completely.

“Hey, don’t go without me!” they both felt Ino distant as if she had been pushed away, hundreds of miles away. In front of them, Temari and Shikamaru witnessed something they never expected. The woman's mouth reacted impulsively to that scene, scolding against the only person on whom she had some sort of influence.

“Kankurō, _what the hell are you doing?!”_ his middle brother, _his bad-tempered little brother_ , stood upright, with threads of chakra stretching from his fingers to manipulate Sasori's artificial body. His puppet floated in mid-air, waiting for the orders of its master, while all around them stood a concentric wall of Konoha ninja ready to attack with kunai, shuriken and chakra-impregnated scrolls, high in front of them.

With instinct forged by her ninja training, Temari extracted a scroll similar to the others. From it she took back the fan she had lost in the sandstorm, after having formed the hand seals necessary for the recall of her instrument. She opened it, ready to shake it in case anyone tried to hurt her brother.

_ If he summoned Sasori… the situation is worse than I was hoping... _

Temari's reasoning was interrupted by his brother's violent voice, still scratching due to the sand in his throat.

“You don't understand, Temari! _That jerk is_... _is offending our people_ and insulting _our_ Kazekage!” the kunoichi didn’t understand immediately. She sifted through the group of people massed on the edge of the scene to look for Baki. She noticed him among a group of Suna ninja who were aiming their weapons, in turn, against the group of Konoha who threatened Kankurō.

Then she saw him. The Sixth Hokage of Konoha Village stood in front of Kankurō, like the statue of an authoritative leader as he was. The silver hair sparkled even in the twilight caused by the storm and on the face, half hidden by the mask up to the nose, the pitch-black eyes stood out.

An intense and dangerous look _, aimed at her_.

“’evening. Could you tell your ... _little brother_ to stop, before _he gets hurt?_ ” he spoke courteously to her, too much for the way his muscles were tense and his expression was as sharp as a blade. Temari swallowed hard, while loosening the guard position.

“Don't listen to him! This _traitor_ is trying to undermine the alliance between us and Konoha! He dared ... "

“Did he say that Gaara is behind all this?”

Temari's question gushed from her as if she had never uttered it. It was a waterfall that fell icy over the whole handful of people, taking them by surprise. They all stared at her in shock. Their weapons lowered. Even Baki, her indecipherable teacher, gave her a bewildered look.

The only one who continued to stare without the slightest yielding was the Hokage. He walked slowly towards her, showing for her a sudden interest. “ _Well_ … May I ask how do you know, _Temari of the Sand?_ ” there was a strange form of respect in that request, the same attention with which she had seen the Hokage address Gaara in so many diplomatic meetings. For a moment, it unsettled her.

She barely felt the presence of Shikamaru and Ino at her side, probably they stayed behind because they didn’t want to further animate those moments of tension. Shikamaru's fingers inadvertently touched her arm. From that, she recovered her composure.

“Because my… _prayers_ have been answered, Hokage” she swallowed again, sand and smell of rotten leaves and earth flooded her palate. “What do you mean?” the Hokage almost had a bright look. The moon peeped out of that everlasting golden haze.

_ “The witch of the east ... Nocnitsa has come to get him.” _

**_ _ **

**_ Continues in Chapter III: Witches of the human soul _ **


	3. Chapter III: Witches of the human soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the third chapter after quite a bit of delay ... I really apologize for being unable to respect the deadline, unfortunately I had to rework this chapter a lot. I also realized one thing: I will probably have to add an extra chapter to better resolve the situation. I have put a lot of things together and I think they need more space to develop ...  
> In addition, I believe that I’ll add a final epilogue, to apologize for my monstrous delay!  
> I thank all those who have had the patience to wait for the third chapter: I hope it lives up to expectations.  
> Enjoy the read!

_ "It all started ... like a game." _

Outside, the sandstorm raged on the chakra barrier. From the epicenter of the village, noises of scattered collapses rose, surrounded by screams, crying and panting. The houses, similar to clay pots, contained nothing but silence. The seed of fear dwelt far from them, on the barren mouths of civilians, crisscrossed by cracks like the outer walls of buildings. It took so little to disperse them, a banal glimpse of an atmospheric phenomenon for which they should have been prepared!

Yet, the ninja of Sunagakure and Konohagakure couldn’t worry about the reality from which they were seized, by an enemy whose true form they could hardly identify, lost in the darkness of the wind and sand. Their eyes were on Temari, but not only on her lean figure, like one of the folds of her steel fans, nor on her face where the eyes looked down, just where they all finally reached: to the hands full of dirt, which had stuck under her nails.

To the damp, worn parchment that the woman held in her hand and that she had hidden, long ago, in the vase of one of Gaara's cacti.

_ "A gymnocalycium ... A gift from his uncle ..." _

Ino didn’t know what importance the man had in Temari's story, but she sensed he was tied by the same thread with which the kunoichi of the Sand had outlined her story: of fear and legends that should have remained like that. The proof of the myth was in those faded letters, imprinted on the paper with blood.

_ Nocnitsa, as a pledge… take my blood and that of the monster you’ll have to free me from. _

The fiction had become reality. Just like her colleagues and allies, arranged in a circle around the Kazekage's sister, Ino listened, understood. She saw those feelings on the faces of others. She didn’t have to use her clan’s technique to grasp what lurked beyond the ninjas' pristine surface.

There was Shikamaru with his cigarette now close to consuming his fingertips. He had that intense black gaze of someone analyzing a phenomenon for the first time, coldly capturing its most unusual aspects. Ino's heart stopped in her throat: the sudden desire to hug him passed through her and she was only able to counteract it by thinking that she wanted to do the same for Temari. That distraught woman who spoke and wrote a story on which another perspective was thrown.

Even if she didn't know him as well as his teammate, or the woman for whom he stood motionless without revealing a gasp of emotion, Ino would have gladly offered Kankurō a hug. To that boy who, for the sake of both his siblings, was tearing himself apart in thoughts. Ino sensed the breadth of his feelings without having to read his mind. She had seen hundreds of faces like his during the Fourth Shinobi World War.

His painting cracked, showing a human face.

_ "I was unable to fulfill the second part of the pact... Someone must have done it for me." _

Temari unrolled the bottom of the parchment and they saw something new in the past: more vivid bloodstains, lashed just before the formula on the sheet came to an end. Blood to summon a mythical creature that none of them knew nothing about.

"A witch who feeds on the past to steal the future."

At that point, Kakashi awoke from that intent listening. The Sixth Hokage had a strange, heavy look. Ino felt it on her and it seemed that a weight had fallen on her shoulders. Like the story. Like the astonished faces of those present. Like the sandstorm trying to drive its claws into their lungs.

Ino cursed her ability to be able to enter the minds of others, to be able to project hers into them by taking possession of memories and emotions, having the power to shape them at will. Her blue eyes turned into reflective glass.

_ "Show them." _

Her best friend's former teacher calmly commanded her, even with a faint note of sweetness, if not for her at least because he knew how difficult it could be to carry out his order. Ino nodded in agreement. With a deep sigh, she drove the guesswork and uncertainty out of her body. Only her soul remained, which lived following the rhythm of the heart: placid, mechanical. Empty.

As she raised her hands to almost form a frame around her superior’s face, Ino opened her mind and asked the shinobi to enter into symbiosis with her breath, so that they could see the memories of the Hokage with her. The murmur of their consciences was introduced into her perception of things, but Ino continued to watch herself in the gaze at the center of her technique’s hand seal, black and tired. She read what was being revealed there and everything seemed far away and clear as a morning sky. The same one she saw in Kakashi's memories.

They were Gaara's blue eyes, devoid of any shade. Two expressionless globes inside a skull on which it stretched an almost withered skin lay. Ino analyzed his dull appearance with the serenity typical of that state where the Yamanaka’s technique led her, in which feelings and emotions did not prevail over those of her host. It was _easier_ not to lose control of the jutsu, it was _easier_ to witness the inert body of the Kazekage ordering the sandstorm to move thanks to the chakra he was covered with. But he was nothing more than a shell of skin _feeding someone else_.

Then a purple flash crossed Gaara's features. In addition to the deafening noise of the sandstorm, she heard a crackling similar to thunder, the new technique created by the Hokage to replace his Lightning Cutter. The purple beam of light burst out in the hands of her leader’s past reflection. He darted quickly towards the motionless boy and Ino simply found that he would die, devoid of any inflection of her heart.

She had to change her mind at the appearance of a hand from behind Gaara's back. The tiny hand of a child.

_ “A pathetic move... Hokage." _

Sand stood up to protect his master from the fiasco on his shoulders. The Purple Electricity was assimilated into the brown flow of sand.

Even in that state of total detachment from herself, Ino felt a strange motion of surprise at chest height. Confused, she wondered if it belonged to her or was it just a reminiscence of the emotions felt by Kakashi in front of that scene. She sensed something identical to the limits of her awareness, that background noise produced by all the ninja who relived that memory with her.

That little Gaara of the Desert didn’t care what had triggered his arrival. Embedded in a memory where nothing could touch him, the child showed himself _wearing the smile of a monster_. The pupils were two pins inside the corneas.

Ino thought she saw a ruby  reflection in them, but it was… _bizarre_. A strange aura surrounded that past which had taken shape in the present: it looked like a white halo of dry branches on which frost rested, but they smelled of rotten leaves and earth. A wave of sand moved against the past perception of the Hokage. Ino realized that the recollection was ending.

The Sixth Hokage withdrew from her mind and the kunoichi locked her conscience to the other presences. She exhaled loudly, unable to utter a word. Her nostrils burned and all her facets returned in herself. She experienced fear, disbelief, anger, helplessness and another huge mix of emotions all together. She collapsed to the ground, with no more strength to support that sudden return to reality.

A Konoha’s ninja approached her to try to help her up. She saw him through a blinding patina, still captivated by that short but vivid journey. As soon as she closed her eyelids to reconnect with the world she was attacked by, she saw Gaara in front of her. That body was nothing more than an imprint of the boy she had glimpsed a few moments in those years of peace. It reminded her enormously of that little boy she had been afraid of during the Chūnin Exams, when she was too small to contain anything else but her inner world. Her heart clenched in a vise, but she was overcome by an overwhelming panic.

When she opened her eyes, Kankurō was dashing towards the head of her village, with Sasori at his side. She blanched. Instinctively, she moved her fingers to capture Kankurō within her technique, breaking through the mental barriers compromised by the man's wrath.

She heard the surprised screams of the ninja around her, the rapid movement of the members of Konoha running to protect the Hokage. She and Kankurō were in the midst of that emotion, _but their battle was somewhere else_.

Ino had slipped into Kankurō's mind. She tried to stem it as much as she could. She restrained his attack and imposed her will upon the man's fury. But she was tired, exhausted from the mental journey just concluded.

Kankurō overflowed over the boundary she had erected to control him. Ino gasped and hardly remembered who she was anymore: she was submerged in an infinite abyss where only Kankurō existed and what lived in him, so dark as to make her lose all reference points.

_ Like this I’ll… _

__

Instinct forced her to return to her body to re-emerge in herself. She took a deep breath of air and the ninja who was beside her winced. Again, the kunoichi had to regain control of her body: the air above the skin. The grainy taste of sand between her teeth. The muffled sound of the sandstorm.

The pungent smell of that witch whose existence they had discovered. The sight of Kankurō held back by her colleagues, a few centimetres away from the Hokage.

_ At least I was useful... _

She mocked, but a layer of tears ran down her cheeks. A stream of blood ran from her nose onto her upper lip. It tasted of iron and salt, of whole years that had been spilled on her with a dense ecosystem of thoughts and feelings. Ino dared not imagine what Temari was going through.

Without her seeing him, Shikamaru scrutinized his teammate for a while. He then stared at the head village who, in turn, fixed his eyes on Kankurō, without any form of repentance. It was a tense weapon ready to strike, Shikamaru could have said sharp. _His_ Temari persisted in observing the ground, as if she was a stranger.

_ What game are you playing, chief? _ Shikamaru thought, shaking the ash from a completely worn-out cigarette.

"Bastard ... You tried to kill him!" Kankurō hissed and his voice was a pin that had the power to hurt them all. Even the ninjas holding him seemed to loosen their grip on him and Sasori. There was not much that could conceal the evidence.

However, the target of those words did not show that he was impressed. “I knew I was going to miss him: I have enough respect of your Kazekage to know he wouldn’t have been surprised by it… but my Purple Electricity will probably hit him, _sooner or later_."

The Hokage's words had initially calmed Kankurō, but what he said after a short pause brought him back to renewed aggression. The Konoha’s shinobi were forced to tighten their grip on him, particularly on his throat and forearms, so that he was unable to manoeuvre his puppet, sparking protests from the present of Suna. They rushed around the circle formed by Kankurō and their allies. It was as if they recovered their senses after a daydream.

"Hokage ... order your underlings to calm down or they’ll have to deal with us! You’re discussing with one of the most powerful villages on the continent!" Baki interjected, despite revealing something profoundly unpleasant in the way he articulated his threat. __

_ Discussing… so he’s considering Kakashi’s suggestion. _

Ino stood up, trembling. The ninja supported her until she was able to remain in that position alone. Her blue eyes were fixed on Temari still holding the piece of paper, clenched in her fist covered with dirt. The cactus was resting on a rock next to her. She extracted it leaving the roots completely intact.

"As far as I'm concerned, there’s only one decision: the Kazekage has unleashed a pandemonium out there, my _underlings_ and I had to give all our energy to reach your village..."

"And this is a valid reason to kill him?!" Kankurō's voice was broken by the grip in his neck, even if Ino noticed a tiny change in his posture: the fingers of one hand had twisted in a strange way. It seemed they were manipulating something ...

The Hokage continued to stare at Kankurō without the slightest change in the indifferent attitude. “We weren't far from the Land of Fire when we were caught in the sandstorm. I’m sure it’ll pass the border in a couple of hours. Sakura and the others are not prepared."

"Sakura?!" surprise sparked the anger of the Kazekage's brother. His eyes widened. The fingers stopped moving for a few seconds. Ino understood quickly.

_ No, Kankurō... _

She tried to speak, but her throat burned enormously. It was as if some kind of empathic connection still tied her to the Suna’s shinobi, because she grabbed her neck and coughed out of breathlessness. Someone turned to her, the ninja beside gave her a few pats on her shoulders, asking how she felt. However, Ino could accurately distinguish Shikamaru's gaze from everyone else.

_ Please ... do something! _

She mentally pleaded him, hoping that his friend understood what Kankurō was about to do. Instead, she heard the discussion continuing as nothing had happened.

"Yes, Kankurō ... you’re not the only ninja who protects his nation" replied the Hokage coldly, casting a sideways glance at Temari. She was still sitting on the rock with the cactus beside her. Her hands gripped the parchment and her eyes were locked on a myriad of possibilities. It almost seemed that the leader of Konohagakure was disappointed by something.

“Even if it is, Hokage, you’re proposing an extreme solution! We can think of another plan to free the Kazekage from the control of this… _witch_ ” Baki babbled, gesturing to his subordinates to keep their weapons in view of their _allies_. Their menacing aura touched the perception of Konoha’s shinobi. The tension was mounting and battering their most optimistic hopes.

"With a sandstorm that threatens to destroy the barrier we have created in any moment? I have no intention of making innocent people pay for our lack of readiness. "

"So you have already decided that _Gaara_ has to pay for everyone?!" it was the first time the brother had called the leader of the Suna by name. Ino shivered as she felt new tears emerge from the sides of her gaze. She chased them away, noting how much that cry of Kankurō had upset his sister: she was bent over herself, her shoulders yielded and quivered, as if they were being beaten. The woman's hand approached the fan next to her, on the opposite side of the cactus.

The Hokage didn't realize anything, or probably didn't want to. In any case, he had already decided that their reactions wouldn’t matter to him.

"I think your brother has already done enough to deserve it, _don't you think_?" those words hit worse than a weapon. He said them calmly, with a calculated slowness.

It shocked everyone. Kankurō was frozen, _petrified_. Even Baki winced as if he had received a slap in the face.

The only ones who were not affected were Shikamaru, Temari and Ino. One stared at his leader as if he had focused on solving a puzzle. The other had reopened her eyes, while not taking them off the ground. Her hand had grabbed the sharp folds of the fan, ignoring the wound she had caused to her fingers from holding it too tight.

The last one brooded and brooded, biting her lip: she was back in the universe of Kakashi and in that of Kankurō. She was herself again, reworking everything she had observed in them, frantic and heartbroken. She could only think of Gaara and his blank eyes.

She had completely forgotten the clues that Kankurō had given.

For that reason, she jumped when the blades emerged from Sasori's back. Kankurō had found a way to command the puppet without breaking free! The ninjas around it were caught off guard. Some had managed to escape in time, unharmed.

Others had suffered the cutting of the blades. They screamed: blood spattered from their arms and torso, where their clothes had been torn. Those holding Kankurō were stunned.

It was enough for the man to get what he wanted. The grip on his forearms lost strength, enough to allow him to make better use of the chakra threads. A rush of flames shot from Sasori's back, causing those near the puppet to run away, except for Kankurō. They realized it too late.

The flames warmed the environment by touching the clothes of Gaara's brother without damaging them. Kakashi also remained motionless, with his arms folded as an open challenge to that _boy_. He didn’t wait.

He sprinted at the Sixth Hokage with his fist ready to strike. Sasori had approached his side, with the blades pointed at the target.

_ "No!" _ Ino rasped, without strength to counter Kankurō's offensive again. The other ninjas were just as stunned as she was. Shikamaru remained still. His intuition had already spotted what would happen.

When Temari jumped against Kankurō, he was the only one who wasn’t surprised. The kunoichi of Suna threw her fan against her brother. The handle hit him in the shoulder, the fan’s upper part in Temari's hands. He was thrown back by the impact.

He cried out in pain as he fell to the ground. He crawled his arm and leg, skinning them properly. Ino felt it: the empathic connection was struggling to disappear. She grabbed her arm firmly, clenching her teeth.

Temari stared at the cloud of dust that had risen from his brother's landing. She stared at him with a hard gaze as he stood up and watched in shock, as if the woman he knew was being controlled by someone else. She didn't move. Blood ran through her fingers like threads of cobweb.

"Don’t you dare to disrespect our allies like that _again_ " Kankurō was not the only one to be blown away: his colleagues were amazed that the Kazekage's sister had addressed those words to her brother. Their allies, however, were still tense, worried that the woman was setting a trap for them. Their leader seemed to have a totally different opinion: his muscles had relaxed.

"Temari ... that _jerk_..." "It doesn't matter what he did or said: we are the _shinobi of Sunagakure"_ Temari intervened before his brother concluded his invective. She spoke in a cold voice, completely detached from the image of that woman who had told her past guilt with her heart in a thousand pieces. It hurt him worse than the blow she'd dealt him.

Ino held her breath. She approached her teammate with slow steps, her legs were now ceasing to tremble. He saw her coming and put his arm around her back. "Are you okay?" he asked, continuing to stare at the scene in front of him, where Kankurō had risen from the ground and rearranged himself, abandoning Sasori beside a rock. A new cigarette was already resting on the profile of his lips. This convinced Ino that the tension was subsiding. She was heartened by it.

"Yeah… I'm just worried about you: that woman will put you at your place _with just a glare_..." she babbled with a joyless laugh. Her heart felt heavy, even if she had nothing to do with the situation, even if she wasn't that kunoichi from Suna who pointed expressionless eyes at the Hokage. She swallowed hardly.

Shikamaru shrugged. "Maybe… I won’t need it" he replied and he was so vague that he worried and intrigued her. She was going to ask him what was going through his head, when Temari's voice caught their attention.

“On behalf of the Kazekage, I apologize for what happened. Similar mistakes will not be repeated. Sunagakure respects the alliance with all of you" the kunoichi pronounced intensely, her voice loud and clear so that everyone could hear it. Konoha’s shinobi were wary: their gazes travelled from her to the Sixth Hokage.

Then, they relaxed when they saw their leader shrug. "Apologies accepted," he murmured, stretching his numb muscles. His people laid their weapons in their liners. Kankurō had sat down on the sidelines: he was removing the remnants of paint from his face with a cloth.

Temari took a deep breath. "Hokage, you’re right to fear for the safety of our village, it’s always our priority... _For this exact reason_ , we want the Kazekage to come back to us."

_ Yes! Go Temari! _

Ino mentally urged her, breaking away from Shikamaru. She still couldn't understand why the Hokage had chosen to pose so harshly towards the two sibling of Gaara. The fact that the woman was regaining command of the situation filled her with hope.

“And how have you planned to take him back? The last time I saw him he didn't seem to be… _of sound mind_. Not to mention that what I said to your teacher and your brother remains unchanged "the Hokage retorted.

_ Oh no... _

Ino understood the Hokage's point of view, but she was desperate that it could be the only viable one. She struggled, sifting through every corner of her mind for another solution. She thought and thought, until she met Temari's eyes, which had stopped on her for who knows how long.

A burst of energy overwhelmed her. It lit up her face, clearing the darkness of her anguish.

The others also quickly grasped the meaning of the glance. It was as if they were breathing again. They jumped in a single instant like the flicker of a glimmer of hope. Shikamaru awakened her teammate with a fleeting squeeze, convincing her that she understood what Temari had suggested.

Still, the head of her village refused to join them.

"Absolutely no" the man said, dry as the sand he was beginning to resemble.

" _Please,_ Hokage!" Ino exclaimed, escaping from Shikamaru's support, forgetting the fatigue and the grains of sand in her throat, speaking in her usual ringing voice. It broke that role play where indifference reigned supreme.

_ I'm the only one who can do it... _

"My clan's technique is the only thing that can work!" she added coming in front of his superior with hasty steps. The light shone in her blue gaze contrasted the inherent darkness in Hatake Kakashi's one.

“Maybe you didn't understand what Temari told us. _Nocnitsa_ … is a witch who hunts children and feeds on them. To be able to _manipulate an adult so easily_ … it means that the kid you met at the Chūnin Exams never left "Kakashi explained with the same arrogance with which she had seen him scold Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke so many times. The same, _pompous_ , certainty of having lived twice her years and three times her suffering. He was provoking her, he wanted her to give in to anger just like Kankurō. In despair like Temari.

But _she wouldn't have done it_. On her shoulders she felt the calloused hands of the two men from whom she had learned almost all her knowledge: she could smell the smoke of a burning cigarette, before the rain extinguished it forever, or the scent of flowers. They were with _her_.

"Hokage, I listened to her _very carefully_. For that, I know that someone else completed the ritual in Temari's place. Whoever did that has probably modified the ritual to make sure it had a grip on the Kazekage, "Ino said at attention. "Even if it was... We don’t have time" replied the man, crossing his arms. He had lost some of his arrogance.

"I'm sorry Hokage, but _here_ it's all relative!" Ino joked, pointing her fist against her temple. "When you think about it, an hour of time can pass _very slowly…_ I bet we’ll have all the necessary time... "

"To do what exactly, _Yamanaka_?" her leader interrupted. Now, he was almost evil, with burning fire in that pitch-black look. “To rescue him, _of course_! Whether it's a simple technique or another _strange_ jutsu… I would be able to find out from how his chakra’s circulation behaves. We could understand who put his blood on the parchment "Ino continued, her words as fast as her heart beat madly. Her mind responded to the urgency of her will in just few instants.

Even the other ninja watched in amazement: they gazed at the future leader of the Yamanaka clan as if they were seeing her for the first time, but none of them could know her as well as Shikamaru, or Chōji. When she put something in her head, there was nothing that could counter it.

_ You bet on the right person... _

Shikamaru looked at Temari and sighed, putting out yet another cigarette between his fingers. She ignored him and everything else, fixed only on the girl who had taken charge of her silent request so spontaneously that it led her to hope.

_ You women… you’re too troublesome. _

“Hokage, with all due respect, isn't that what you did all those years ago with Naruto and Sakura? What is changed since then? " "It was different… we were just following orders" Hatake Kakashi hissed.

_ "Then, please, give me that order!" _ Ino snapped. She hadn't given in even for a moment: she was still there, with her tense body and combative expression. The Hokage snorted, stamping his foot rhythmically: unlike the girl, he had lost most of his tenacity.

" _Ino_... You’re too precious for Konoha... I can't take the risk," he finally said.

"Hokage... I think the alliance between Konoha and Suna is much more important than _me_ " when Ino uttered that statement, it seemed that it had come out of its own volition. It was a verdict she couldn’t escape from. She had an imperceptible shudder along her bones, but she drove them away, exactly as she should: she was a ninja and nothing more.

Something in that instinctive response deeply shook Konoha’ Kage. The girl was suddenly afraid he would hit her. She closed her eyes, twitching in preparation for a bump that didn't happen.

The pair of hands on her shoulders became real. They were Kakashi's. Ino opened her eyes again, taken aback: she saw a light at the bottom his gaze’s darkness.

"Very well Ino... _very well_ " there was a nuance in his voice that invigorated her. She smiled, finally free from any form of worry, engulfed by an adrenaline rush.

_ "Yes, sir!" _ she rang like a bell, awakening everyone and their hopes.

The tension vanished in a flash. Konoha’s shinobi and Suna’s ones returned to approach, to give each other mutual help, to prepare the equipment to venture into the sandstorm. Ino was taken aside by Temari and Kankurō, who wanted to help her just before she faced that mission into which she had thrown herself. It was a huge sigh of relief, the waning of a situation that no one wanted to exacerbate.

The Hokage looked at everyone and stood aside after talking with Temari and Baki, sitting in the same place that the kunoichi of Suna had occupied during her story. The cactus was gone, put back in the vase.

In his stead, the equally sharp presence of Shikamaru joined him. The man behind the village chief's robes snorted, tracing a line of sand with his foot.

_ Asuma… Couldn't you have raised less annoying pupils? _

Still, the Sixth Hokage was almost euphoric. A smile was hidden behind the mask that covered his face up to the nose. He wondered what would have happened if he had not left Chōji on the border of the Land of Fire with Sakura, but he could not fantasize too much: that brat with a perpetually tired look wanted to be taken into consideration.

"I gave them an hour and nothing more," he whispered, raising his eyes to the brown sandy sky: beyond that uniform cover peeped out the glare of a morning light.

"I guessed it: time’s running out" Shikamaru replied. “Don't you want to go help them? They need your wits. They rely too much on brute force” the boy smiled at his leader's question. There were no more cigarettes hanging from his lips.

"I was thinking to tie up some loose ends before" he picked up some sand from the ground and closed it in his fist. It was so tight that the element slipped from the hold through the little finger’s crack, falling and spreading in the air like dust.

It reminded to Kakashi the figure of Gaara during a diplomatic meeting a few months earlier: his melancholy air, that sand slipping from his fist, white as a sheet. They were celebrating, yet he was isolated and taciturn. His siblings were always around him, but they were unable to invade the edge of that empty space of his. He sighed, closing his eyes.

He heard Shikamaru articulate his position.

“I don’t understand why you used Purple Electricity if you knew it was going to miss. In a situation like that, wasting your chakra doesn't seem a great idea. "

"Point taken" replied the Sixth Hokage bringing his arms to his chest. Shikamaru continued: "To me… the only thing that seems vaguely plausible is that you, Kakashi, knew there was something… _odd_. You probably even guessed what was controlling Gaara... You just looked for a proof."

" _And?_ " Kakashi asked, giving him an eloquent look. Shikamaru leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His legs moved rhythmically, captivated by the speed of his thoughts.

"It makes me think that you humiliated this village… that you hit Kankurō… _that you hurt Temari_ because you had some ulterior reasons" the boy turned to him. A red lattice veined his corneas with fatigue and something else easily identifiable.

"So, _chief_ … Don’t you think it’s about time to tell me what's on your mind?" Kakashi snorted.

"Why so curious?" he asked, expecting a different answer from the one Shikamaru gave him. "If one day I have to be by Naruto's side ... I’ll need to get ready for these annoyances" The Sixth Hokage relaxed, but Shikamaru hadn't finished speaking yet.

"And because I’m so close to punch you for how you treated _my woman_ ," he stared at him with fire in his eyes. A burning cesspool. _The hell, Asuma… he's your copy!_

Kakashi felt like laughing, even if that little boy was anything but friendly: he reminded him of his teacher and that phrase he had said to him many years ago, at a similar, yet different moment. He sighed, won by those young people who insisted on overwhelming him with their arrogance.

" _Okay Shikamaru. I'll tell you."_

__

**_ Continues in Chapter IV: What lurks in the shadows _ **


	4. What lurks in the shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I don't apologize anymore. I thank you only for the enormous patience you have in waiting for a new chapter. Thank you very much! I know, the pace is a little slow, but Gaara and Ino are still the main focus. I'll show it! :D
> 
> Thanks in particular to Mushroom and barbieshitposts for their valuable comments. I treasure them.
> 
> Ah, I realized that I never explained where Nocnitsa came from: she's a spirit of Slavic myths, which usually haunts children. I was inspired by her, so I've given this witch the same name, but she's somewhat different.
> 
> Now, I'll just let you enjoy the reading!
> 
> Thanks again <3

** Chapter IV: What lurks in the shadows **

****

Sand and wind welcomed them out of the shelter they had so painstakingly protected. The Hokage led the expedition alongside the Kazekage’s siblings, while Ino stayed behind with a large group of other ninjas. Baki and Shikamaru were in Sunagakure, to check that the barrier was resisting and to receive the information they would send them.

_ “You know, Ino… My help is necessary here. We need to find out who made this mess”  _ Shikamaru had joined his teammate shortly after parting with Kakashi. He was the usual placid boy, even in the most stressful situations, but the friend immediately recognized the ghost of concern. She had tried to remove the veil of appearance, but in vain. The boy had silenced her with one of his laconic answers: _"Just think about doing your job, okay? We’ll take care of the rest."_

Invested by that sense of responsibility, the kunoichi had spent much of the time of preparations to meditate, nourishing her spiritual energy and strengthening control over her chakra, through which she would try to unravel the conglomerate of thoughts and facets of Gaara. Temari had supported her, offering her glimpses of a past foreign to her.

_ "His uncle, Yashamaru ... was the only one who stayed with him when Shukaku was inside him... It was his death that transformed him into that little boy you saw during the chūnin exams." _

Ino had accepted that information just as Temari had given her the vase with the gymnocalycium in it: the cacti was small, yet well-tended, with a bright green stem, tough thorns, and a large flower growing from the protuberance at the top of the trunk. It was beautiful, it gave off a faint vegetal smell and almost of… _sea_. She regretted that, in the family shop, they had kept a few specimens and exclusively on order.

Ino and Temari’s hands had joined over the thorns, creating heat from the grip and pain from the pressure against them. Even blood had flowed over from Temari's side, because she had pressed too much on the plant.

_ "Please, Ino... if you are in trouble... tell me"  _ the woman had uttered with a clear look beyond the kunoichi mask. In her teal eyes, the younger one thought she could almost see a light on the horizon. She understood, as Temari's blood stained her fingers. At the same time, a slight spiritual presence had crept into her soul. A part of essence which that sister had given up for the love of her brother.

_ "Temari ... I won’t let you down!" _ her voice had been fostered by that sacrifice. Ino had stored it for when she would thunder in the consciousness of the Kazekage, to awaken him. Temari had smiled at her. It was the last time they spoke as friends.

Then, the woman she knew had been absorbed by the uncompromising figure of a person who took the place of Sunagakure’s leader.

She was at the side of the Hokage and, every time the chakra bubble gave way to a gust of wind, she sent the assault back with a blow of the fan, while the ninja in charge restored the protection. They had been traveling for a while now, entangled by the darkness of the sand and the night, from which the brightness of the next dawn barely filtered and on which the bluish light of the chakra reverberated. Ino shrugged, a cold shiver of the desert had penetrated by the last attack of the storm.

It was then that Kankurō joined her. "Are you okay?" he asked, slowing his pace. The Konoha’s ninjas moved quickly, without touching him, despite the tight space. Two of them had narrowly escaped Sasori's flames. Ino was sorry, even though she understood them.

" _Well_ ... I recovered!" she smiled in a voice as low as the Suna ninja, yet with her usual bright tone. They had approached each other. "Are you sure? I sent you away with a certain... _enthusiasm_ " the man replied scratching his face. Now that he had swiped the paint off his face, the emotions of the boy behind the ninja were clearly visible. It was an almost tender sight.

"No, really ... _don't worry_!" she was so preoccupied that she added: "And... the Hokage told you a half-truth: Sakura stayed near the border, but I doubt the storm will get to where they camped ... unless it’ll pass an entire forest! " she joked by giving him a conspiratorial elbow, offering him the happiest smile she could in a tense situation like that.

"Uh, I guessed it ... that old bastard made fun of me from the first moment" he murmured in response. There was so much fatigue in his voice, _so much anger and frustration_ , that it couldn't come from that trivial revelation. The lump in Ino’s throat tightened. On impulse, she hurried to reply, relying on the instinct that had guided her since childhood. The same one through which she had once healed the wounds of her best friend.

" _I saw him_ , Kankurō... Me, Shikamaru and Chōji _shivered_ when we felt _his gaze_ on us... You don’t have to feel guilty," she whispered placing a hand on his arm. Above was the bandage she had made for his skinning, but she still felt the warmth of his skin.

The Suna ninja put a hand over hers. It was large, calloused like those of so many other shinobis, warm as the look with which he turned to her eyes. He looked extremely young to her, with broad brown irises, A puppeteer rushing headlong into a fight, yet an ordinary person. He smiled. The girl's heart warmed.

It was a shorter moment than she wanted. As if he knew he had revealed something intimate, Kankurō ran his hand over the bandage, staring at the arm with a classic façade indifference. "Sakura makes it better" Ino rolled her eyes at the sandy sky. She was suddenly unhappy that the boy had returned to be the same, _annoying_ , idiot. Yet she smiled. "Oh yeah, _I should probably have known_... I'll tell her next time we’ll see each other."

"If you would do me a favor… Tell her to dump _that psycho boyfriend_... I'll be _eternally_ grateful" Ino snorted. “Why don't you tell her, instead? I'm sure she's _dying_ to hear the same thing, over and over! " she grumbled. The air of normality, however, was calming her nerves. She tried to recall Gaara's last position on the map they had used to plan the expedition, imagining how they would find him once the veil of the sandstorm was torn apart...

" _You know_... sometimes it’s difficult to see someone you love suffering without a cause... I think you can understand" a shudder shook the inside of her stomach. Oh, _of course_ she could understand him!

Her thoughts flew to an Anbu of Konoha for whom she had felt so much pain. She fantasized about that courtesy smile of his, which was nothing more than the phantom of a joy that he no longer wanted. How many disappointments she had collected from her unsuccessful attempts!

“Yes… _I understand_. I think you are braver than me! " she exclaimed sensing the coldness of her thoughts. "Wasn't it obvious?" the man asked back. She was about to retort, when they suddenly stopped.

Kakashi and Temari had stopped moving forward.

" _I sense him_ " the woman hissed, sweat beading her forehead. She pulled the fan out of the lining on her back. A crackling sounded in their ears. An unmistakable light came from the hand of the Sixth Hokage. "Well ... _let's find out_!" the leader of Konoha sprinted forward. They followed him.

The chakra bubble shielded them, preventing the sandstorm from penetrating their lungs. At one point, the front part opened, allowing Kakashi to leap into a corner of the thick-looking, _almost palpable_ , currents of wind and sand. The attack of the village’s leader, based on lightning release, penetrated the surface, destroying it as if it were a stone wall, revealing what was hidden behind it. Ino swallowed hardly. She approached the breach. She felt Kankurō's arm beside hers.

"There he is… _your Kazekage_ " Kakashi's hiss pierced her as all the other ninja joined them. The young woman wondered what was going through their heads, wishing to be outside the grip from which her chest was grasped.

Behind the sand wall, there was the Fifth Kazekage of the Suna. There was the shadow of that boy, in a worse form than Kakashi's memories had previously shown. That young leader's skin had cracked like barren ground. The eyes had become white and, from his dark circles, a reticulum of veins dripped, made visible by his thin skin. The chakra that ran between the skin’s cracks, from which he was slowly being dried up, continued to expand, while the breach closed on that harsh reality over which their souls had broken apart.

The Hokage's voice was a horrible awakening. "Well... I think _a hour is all we have_ " he sighed with the same emotionless attitude he had expressed since the beginning of that affair. His confirmation of the gravity of the situation exacerbated the urgency of their movements.

The ninjas of the two villages trafficked from all sides, preparing the reinforcements for the chakra bubble and the changes that they would make to keep it until dawn. They talked excitedly, but Ino hardly heard them. Temari's exposition cut any interference.

"As soon as you’re ready, the Hokage will hit the sand wall again, allowing you to use your technique on the Kazekage... Once you are in his mind, Nocnitsa will notice you and she’ll try to send you away. But you’ll have to fight back and take as much information as you can about who summoned her. "

“What you’ll find, you’ll tell me _immediately_. The kamatari and I will return to the village and we’ll search our target with the others. You just have to find a way to soothe the Kazekage until we do. "

Ino nodded at each step of the explanation, feeling her head lighter with each movement. As if she had guessed something, Temari squeezed her shoulders, offering her a brief moment of comfort. "Ino... _you're going to make it_ " she was kind and warm. The girl could not contradict her.

"Yeah... I’ll bring back _Gaara_ " for a long time they had only called him by his title! _His name_ led Temari to hug her, taking her by surprise. But she returned it: it was all she could wish for.

_ If only I was as capable as all of you... _

The kunoichi of Konoha reflected after moving away from the woman, walking towards the Hokage. He was giving her a stern, penetrating stare, because he had guessed all her doubts or hesitations. His subordinate shrugged. There was nothing she could do about it.

She saw Gaara in her thoughts and that, for the moment, was enough.

A breath of fresh air, unlike the raging whirlwind of the sandstorm, was filtered through the chakra bubble, from the point where it opened on the sand wall. It announced the last farewell of the night, before dawn took them away from their nightmares.

Kankurō decided to wake her up ahead of time. "So you’re going... are you sure?" he asked hoarsely, approaching her side. Ino smiled, while keeping her face in front of her. She had a suspicion that if she stopped, she would never leave again.

"There isn't much else I can do ... I’ve asked for it!" she laughed, like she was immersed in a daydream. She couldn’t deny herself a glance at the ninja she had known in those years of war and peace: when Temari and Shikamaru formed a couple during various operations, herself and Kankurō, together with Chōji, usually concluded the missions with some chat, instead of some bruised enemies. The man knew how to be detestable and yet... she recognized his goodness.

_ Sakura ... you’ll understand too late: men who ignore you are a really bad investment! _

She was still mulling over Sai, but he was far away. The mind, with its whims and worries, prevailed over the reality that awaited her at home. She couldn’t, however, see it as a negative thing.

The Suna ninja grabbed her shoulder. The girl stiffened. She was forced to slow down to a stop, remembering where she was and what was expecting her once she entered Gaara's mind. She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat.

The boy stared at her and looked like a ghost with whom she had made a blood pact: he pierced her with that look. "You'll do it ... _Yamanaka Ino_."

Silence picked up the ninja's sentence, depositing it in the heart of his ally. Kankurō slid his hand on her arm, giving her an almost fraternal caress. He had a voice gentle as his sister.

“I… I'm not as good as Temari… I'm not even as smart as Gaara… I'm lucky I don't need to take care of anything, except for the missions I receive ... but _I do care about my friends_ "He gripped her forearm giving her a start. Ino felt that only the ninja's façade prevented him from hugging her just like Temari.

“If you need help… _don't hesitate to tell me_ ” Ino's heart calmed down. The young woman nodded, showing her usual audacious smile. Fear was a vague tingle in the stomach. "Can you give Sai a slap for me?" Kankurō snorted, but he was grinning too. He was no longer imbued with that aura of seriousness. "I can’t promise you anything... you’ll probably forget the man" Ino didn’t understand why that idiot was more mature than he appeared. But he was right: a disappointment could easily be forgotten.

_ This mission will give me more to think about. _

She separated from her friend, arriving in front of the Hokage. A spark of electricity was already burning in the hand of the village leader. That burning shock reverberated in his black eyes. "If I had known that the extra time I had estimated would be spent _this way_... I would have given you _ten minutes_."

Ino wasn’t impressed by her leader's provocation: Shikamaru's slightly disappointed face, the only breach through which she had gained access to their earlier discussion, had convinced her that Kakashi's plan was much less rosy, or interesting, for all of them.

"Then I say we should start immediately, _don't you think Hokage_?" the young woman didn’t move a muscle while the man accused the indifference of his dig. Only Ino's skirt shook at the furious scream of the sandstorm, which complained about the new wound caused by Kakashi's Purple Electricity. The kunoichi raised her hands in front of her, building a suitable frame for the face of the Kazekage.

She felt Temari and Kankurō's eyes on her back. They invigorated her.

"As soon as the dust falls... _Go!_ " Ino nodded to the Hokage command. The sand swirled, trying to compose itself, but it was swept away by the impetus of the man's attack. He thrust his hand deeper into the wall of sand. It collapsed helplessly, crossed by the shock of lightning. The natural phenomenon struggled against the vigour of human nature.

Beyond the picture of the elements, Ino _saw him_. The Kazekage was like they had left him a few minutes earlier. He was sad and burdened by his own chakra.

" _Mind Body Switch Technique_!" the scream escaped from her with her spirit. She saw her own body falling to the ground very far away, because she had already landed in another life: she was in the mind of Gaara, in that empty space where his conscience _had to live_. However, the Kazekage was silent and not present. Ino fell into a black nothing.

_ How is that possible... He should be here! _

Ino's thoughts accompanied her with a loud voice, echoing in the surreal atmosphere of the mind. The young woman was dragged to the bottom of that abyss, while she felt her disembodied form being pulled upwards, causing her excruciating pain. A noise very similar to the howling of the wind enveloped her from all sides, even if she didn’t feel its presence.

She travelled shapeless, without being able to define her own appearance, nor the rules of that unknown universe.

_ If only I could … stop! _

While she reasoned, hearing her own voice everywhere with a frantic pace, the sight gave her the opportunity to notice something in the darkness. In a place where there were no nerves from which she could draw brain impulses, fear swept through her, gripping her with a sort of claustrophobic attack.

At the end of the fall there was something. _It wasn't Gaara_.

It had the strange appearance of an anthropomorphic creature, yet decidedly inhuman: a sort of thick branches’ canopy sprinkled with frost, which had appeared around the little Gaara of Kakashi's memories, enveloped the black from which two red flashes were surrounded. She realized they were two eyes, full of blood.

_ Nocnitsa... _

The revealing voice and Ino fell into the abyss. The only thing that remained of her life outside the mind was the heavy toll of the heart. It reminded her the reason of her journey... why fear shouldn't cloud her...

_ I have to… get away! _

Then, the creature opened wide jaws that Ino hadn’t seen. They also revealed the white skin of the witch, which emerged from the void. A blanket of snow from which protruded a jagged row of fangs. Whatever feeling was calming the kunoichi's panic, it shattered into a thousand pieces.

The more her thoughts screamed, the faster she went down into that huge mouth, big enough to swallow her in one bite. Ino pushed herself to rebel against that fate, using her heartbeat as a prop. A help to calm the excited rhythm of her reasoning.

_ I just have to take a form… I have to take control of this world! _

With all the willpower she was capable of, Ino was filled with pain. It was a sorrow due to the effort of recreating her body, the only thing that could save her. While the excruciating sensation almost dissolved her, changing her into a soulless mind, a light flashed from the darkness. Ino breathed, realizing that she had given life to her lungs.

Her arms flashed too, molding themselves thanks to her willpower alone. The kunoichi swallowed, again able to feel the tongue on the palate. Her spirit was completely welcomed back into that familiar form, just a few moments before those jaws were ready to devour her.

_ Now… I just have to send you away! _

__

She wouldn't have known what to do if it was up to her. It was a memory that helped her: she saw the gymnocalycium in front of her, with Temari's fingers pressed on it. She thought of those hard thorns and, suddenly, she felt them on her, like a sharp armor. Her eyes widened, but her heart was beating placidly in her chest.

When the teeth of the mythical being caught her, the thorns of the gymnocalycium stuck in her palate. It was a painful impact for Ino too: although that extraordinary protection harnessed her, it still drew on her energy source. The same one that kept her alive.

The kunoichi let out a moan, choking herself with an acrimonious inhale. However, it could not compete with Nocnitsa's cry.

It was deafening. It filled her ears, forcing Ino to scream too against the pain of her perforated eardrums, even though they were only an image of her real body. With a superhuman effort, the girl tried to grab hold of the fangs by which she was gripped. She craved to imprison the witch before she could kill her.

Nocnitsa's gigantic mouth was gone in an instant. Ino blinked, her lips parted. The scream was gone, but a bright light flooded her eyes, blinding her. She put her hands in front of her face, panting and feeling the numb perception of her body.

Slowly, she focused on her other senses, waiting for her sight to return. She realized that she was standing and that dry heat covered her. The air burned in the nostrils, due to the high temperature.

_ This is… _

Her reasoning, that time, stayed in her head. She opened her eyes, confirming her intuition.

"Sunagakure.”

The young woman was amazed by the details of that memory, including the sensations she perceived. The boiling sun, the still atmosphere. The panorama consisting of the natural walls from which the town was surrounded and the light-blue and clear sky above. She even felt the sand on her feet, or the creak it made when stepped on.

_ This is a very vivid memory... but who... _

A noise distracted her from her contemplation. Ino whirled around, looking at the houses in the village, which were sparser and less impressive than those of the present. Approaching the buildings, the young woman understood that the distraction came from an open door, constructed at the entrance of a house with white walls, but scratched by time. She squinted her eyes, moving forward, until her sockets widened in amazement. She understood who belonged to that memory.

_ Temari! _

That little girl who had slipped out of the house could only be her friend! She had the same unkempt blonde hair. The identical blue eyes, like a rough sea. That little Temari seemed animated by a storm. She ran wildly, unconcerned by the oppressive heat or stagnant air. She was a lively girl as Ino had imagined.

_ This must be... some sort of connection with Nocnitsa... maybe it stayed behind while she fled... but I don't know if it can give me a clue... _

Ino brooded imitating the euphoria of her friend from the past, while the latter ran away on the horizon. The kunoichi of Konoha began to feel a renewed wave of panic, undecided about the behaviour to adopt and the reason behind Gaara's absence.

She was so lost in that inner frenzy that she almost lost the key with which to unlock the doors of that mystery.

She raised her eyes from the ground, on which she had drawn various patterns with her toes. She found herself faced with what she had ignored up to that moment. Her eyes widened. Her lower lip dangled down.

Temari had talked about it in her story. She had repeated it to her in their discussion, before they sneaked into the clutches of the sandstorm. It was so obvious, _so stupid_ , that she almost hit her forehead.

The kunoichi exhaled loudly. She relaxed her shoulders, counting the distant echoes of the heart. The latter emerged from the depths of her consciousness, awakening part of herself. She couldn't leave Gaara right now!

_ "Temari... can you hear me?" _

Her voice came out of her mouth, yet it had resumed echoing around her. A sudden squeeze on her hand, similar to a contraction of the muscles, made her understand that the woman had grabbed it.

_ "Speak." _

The order pushed her, making it easier to formulate the answer.

_ “Your nanny..." _

The gnarled hands of the old woman that Temari had described to her, starting from that particular detail, flickered on her closed eyelids. They had appeared beyond the outline of the house’s open door, waving a goodbye to the infant Temari. 

_ The only one who had told her about Nocnitsa ... The only one who knew about the pact! _

Ino understood it was enough. The grip on her hand disappeared and Kankurō's voice replaced that of her older sister, whispering to her: " _Well done, my friend ... You can rest, if you want ..."_

Ino was grateful for the Suna ninja concern. She wanted to accept the advice, only to resume the search of Gaara with more energy, but a cold feeling upset her stomach.

The young woman stiffened, even stopping her breathing. The last smell she perceived was of earth and rotten leaves. She lifted her head, gazing at the open door where she had glimpsed the nanny's gnarled hands.

Now, Nocnitsa stared at her, _wearing the smile of a monster_. It was terrible, _cruel_. The eyes were red, the skin emaciated. She wore the shades of a winter devoid of the spark of life.

Without Ino being able to do anything to prevent it, bewitched by fear, the witch's bony white fingers reached out to her. Her guts nearly dragged her to the ground.

"No ... _go away_!" the kunoichi howled trying to lengthen the distance between her and the creature through sheer willpower. But she was no longer in control of that world.

The space from which both were separated was shrinking. The outlines of Sunagakure became a shapeless mass with the sand beneath them. Ino shivered all over her body and, in vain, tried to free herself from the grip of Nocnitsa's spell, from the macabre sight of her fingers, coming to claw her throat. Although the young woman had closed her eyelids, the creature's nails had pierced the dark horizon.

"No... I can't... _I must save Gaara_!" Ino's resolve travelled far from her, echoing and lost in the empty space where Nocnitsa had spread her domain. At that point, the unwavering certainties of the kunoichi took a severe blow. Tears rose from the corners of her eyes, pouring down her cheeks.

"No... _I can't fail like this_..." she murmured in a trembling voice. The cold of the being's fingers touched her throat.

The earth shuddered, like it was upset. Ino opened her eyes wide, in amazement. She caught a glimpse of the reflection of the creature's twisted mouth. She was gone.

_ I didn’t do anything... _

Ino swallowed, but didn’t have time to finish her reflections. A new and violent shock knocked her. She groaned. Her back had slammed hard. Sight and hearing collapsed along with the other senses.

The last thing the girl saw was the sand that rose from the ground like a tide. It had the shape of two graceful arms from which she was carried down to the depths of Gaara's consciousness.

Then, the heir of the Yamanaka clan saw and heard nothing more.

Outside the defenceless body of the young woman, Kankurō had stopped holding her pulse, worried by the continuous rhythmic leaps of her heart. Himself, the Hokage and the other ninjas looked around, completely amazed.

The sandstorm had subsided. The fury of the elements was gone.

Only a bubble of sand, indestructible as a wall of rock, protected the unconscious body of the Kazekage.

**_ Continued in Chapter V: Faith in the Wrong People _ **


	5. Faith in the Wrong People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... I have a lot to explain. First and foremost, I deeply thanks whoever had the patience to wait for this chapter. The only thing that I could really say is that you deserve all of my gratitude for having to deal with my irregular updates and have enough patience to accept them. For that, I'm really thankful.  
> Second and foremost, I'm incredibly sorry for my longest delay so far. I know that apologizing doesn't do much for the wait and so, for this, I promise: I'll learn from my mistakes and I'll be a better writer, learning to respect my self-imposed rules and everything that comes with them. I started this story because I really wanted to finally realize the ideas that I had in my mind. I'm writing it feeling, with every new sentence, a sense of joy, because I'm able to put in words something that I didn't know I could do. I decided that I'll strive to use this story as a learning experience: I'll learn a pace that I'll be able to mantain and, from that point, I'll start to improve my abilities. I'm probably oversharing, but I really wanted to come clean.  
> And, also, you were calmer than me... I thought you deserved at least some sort of explanation for my constant hesitations!  
> So... without further ado, I hope you'll enjoy the reading!

** Chapter V: Faith in the Wrong People **

****

The blue sky, clear at the horizon, peeped out from the dome of the sandstorm. Temari stopped. The fan was slowly sinking towards the ground.

" _What the_ …"

The woman hissed as she noticed the faithful kamatari landing with her. Their faces darted from side to side, smelling the air in search of an answer.

" _The sandstorm is_..." Temari widened her eyes, troubled, as the currents of wind faded and changed into a motionless atmosphere, with the sand whirling and then dissolving, deprived of that will from which it had been carried up to that moment.

The desert reappeared from the darkness. The rocks emerged from the spirals of the sand with their jagged spine. Mistletoe cacti stung the retreating sandstorm, tearing strips of dust that tumbled to the ground. A return to normality for which the kunoichi didn’t believe she would have felt so much affection.

She looked back hopefully, her body and heart reaching out to the place she had just left. Her mind turned where she was headed, guided by that sense of duty to which she had become a volunteer subject. She shook her head. The silence that surrounded her was a torture for her doubts.

_ Even if it is… I have a mission! _

__

The woman got back on her fan, urging the kamatari to follow her and they responded quickly, like a single creature, creating gusts of wind over which all of them could be pushed. The young woman to whom they were led showed resolve in her thin gaze, but concern echoed in her chest. She heard the words, full of bright energy, of a friend to whom she had entrusted a task that was, _perhaps_ , too dangerous for anyone.

_ Please, Ino ... don't give up! _

The Kazekage's sister still incited the weasel-like creatures and they increased the intensity of their aerial acrobatics, forcing the currents to adjust to that speed. The sand rose from the ground attracted by the howling of the wind. A golden ocean, shattered by an impalpable sailing ship.

_ Only you... only you can find the key to such a lonely heart. _

Temari closed her eyes, sensing a drop falling from her lashes onto the cheek dirtied by sand, always omnipresent. Then, Gaara's sister saw only the shadows and their embrace.

The same that Ino felt on herself. She was fixed, lost in a space where her deepest feelings and her strongest emotions harboured: she felt the cold of fear that caressed her bare arms, causing her to shiver, the anger that warmed her bowels and from which she drew the sensation of being trapped in the scorching desert sun, but locked away in an ice cage.

_ If only there was… a compromise. _

Her thought hovered lightly around the darkness, even if it didn’t spread outside herself. It stayed inside her head, where the pain came from.

Then, a warm sensation wrapped around her arm. It was a strange perception between those extremes, a comfortable caress. It reminded her of the hug that she, Shikamaru and Chōji had given themselves at the end of the war, or those tears of which they had denied the existence, beyond closed eyelids. She had a sweet aftertaste on the tip of her tongue, of a bitten pastry after a gruelling training session.

_ As nothing else matters... _

She would have continued to float in that languor forever, but a sudden, _rhythmic_ noise thumped hard against her conscience. It sent her a sort of urgency, nullifying the refreshment offered by that warm caress.

_ Do not surrender. _

Ino would’ve liked to drove away that annoying heartbeat, through which a broken, shrill voice resounded, disturbing her. That sound reiterated the same concept while fighting against her wishes. It was useless, _annoying_. It was ...

_ My voice! _

__

A shock ran through Ino's entire body, a vigor she no longer believed she possessed. In a flash, the journey to reach Sunagakure appeared, followed by Temari's face, full of remorse, and Kankurō's teeth gritted with anger. She even sensed Nocnitsa's hooked nails near her neck.

At the end, the kunoichi saw the distant face of a young man, saluting the world from behind a wall of sand.

At that point, she remembered everything. Then, the mission emerged from the darkness like the incessant beating of her heart.

_ Gaara! _

__

She opened her eyes wide. The light enveloped her, but it was partly covered by a shadow. For an instant, the adrenaline rushed through her, as the young woman thought about the witch she had fought. But a hand without _bony fingers_ , or _long nails_ , wiped the sweat from her forehead. It had the same warm the girl had felt on her arm.

" _Please_... don’t move for a couple of seconds…"

_ No… it can't be! _

Ino blinked, realizing that she really was supine on a bed of hot sand, facing a sky with a blinding sun. From the latter’s reflections, the kunoichi put back together the hairs’ red, the eyes’ blue and the pale complexion of someone who happened by chance in the desert and, however, was its most loyal guardian. That almost blurry figure smiled at her.

_ Gaara. _

__

The young man was bending over and was studying her with the same attention with which Ino returned him. She tried to sit up, but the Kazekage put a hand on her shoulder, inviting her to lie down.

" _Please, be patient for a moment_... There’s something here ..." Ino gasped at that extraordinarily gentle voice, which she had rarely heard come out of the mouth of that young leader. She stiffened as his fingers brushed her neck, causing a flash of pain. The kunoichi gritted her teeth, inhaling air from the openings of that steel grip. The contact with the skin burned, as if the boy had touched an open wound of which she couldn’t delineate the presence.

" _I'm really sorry_... it almost looks like someone tried to cut your throat."

_ Why does he speak so calmly? It looks like he's not worried, or ... _

Ino stopped thinking and opened her eyes wide at that Kazekage who had half-closed lashes due to an effort of concentration. He had the same clothes she had seen him wearing several times. It was all ordinary, all within the boundaries of his usual presence.

_ With the exception of those considerable cuts, all over his body _ . The girl turned pale.

They were thin, but deep. They lacerated Gaara's cheeks, the part of the wrists visible outside his long sleeves, as well as the skin of which she could see a section under the collar of his jacket. It seemed that a kunai wind had whipped him. The kunoichi held her breath. Some of those wounds still dropped blood.

The heat of the chakra flooded her throat, giving her relief and terror at the same time.

" _Please, stop Kazekage_!" Ino yelled as she sat up. Her chest rose and fell at the orders of her distress. The boy withdrew his hand, his eyes hurt. However, Ino relaxed. When Gaara removed the chakra from his hand, his skin seemed less dull and his breathing deepened, as if he was gaining some strength.

"I... I just wanted _to help you_ " he murmured and Ino realized that there was something strange, _really strange about that situation_. It was still Gaara, the leader from whom cold and imperious glances could arise, but his behaviour didn’t reflect his personality. 

He was elusive, evading the girl's gaze every time she tried to point it in his eyes. Furthermore, he revealed his emotions through a clearly visible suffering in his mortified expression. The girl would’ve been sorry for him, if she hadn't been secretly afraid of that _oddness_.

The kunoichi leaned towards the ninja, hurrying to limit the damage of her exuberance. "I ... _I beg your pardon, Kazekage_... I’m grateful for your concern, but I don't want your health to worsen at the expense of mine... _just let me_..."

“You know I'm just _the Kazekage's son, right_? I thought… I thought I couldn’t _fool anyone_ ” he interrupted, muttering. Konoha’s kunoichi nodded, agreeing with him. Sweat run down her temple, along with a shiver down her neck.

The heir of the Yamanaka clan knew the main dangers of a mind unaware of itself. She was facing a very intimate part of Gaara, affected by a strange enchantment...

_ Without the due precautions... I can’t know in what state he’ll come back to his senses! _

__

Despite her apprehension, Ino bragged a huge smile. It almost seemed to sparkle in the blinding sunlight.

“Oh, I'm _so_ sorry! I come from outside this country and I must have mistaken you for your father! I wasn’t a good student in school! " chattered the girl with a frivolous laugh, drawing near Kazekage, who was unaware of his position as the head of Sunagakure. Under that intense light, where the white swallowed the contours of sky and earth, the taut figure of the young man stood out with all its facets.

" _Oh_ , _Really_? And what could the _Great_ _Yondaime_ and _his lastborn_ have in common? " grumbled the shinobi crossing his arms over his chest, oblivious to Ino gaining ground with every moment of distraction. Her gaze focused on the wounds on the boy's neck, which sank under the edges of the jacket.

" _Well_... you’ve got a similar posture, from what I can remember from my old school books… and your gazes are _practically identical_! You both have what it takes to be a leader! " Ino laughed without conviction, with the heat that crushed her and the skin that was getting burned under the sun’s rays. She was falling into the nightmare of having found who she was looking for, only to lose him forever...

She was so distressed by preoccupations and by a mind world that, in normal circumstances, wouldn’t have scraped her, that the smile with which Gaara turned to her had the power to startle her. She swallowed, her palate dry. Her hand stopped in mid-air, not far from touching the boy's battered arms. Another type of warmth, kinder than the heat of that imaginary desert, rose to her cheeks.

Gaara's lips stretched into a shy, _young_ smile. It reminded her of Ninja Academy’s days, of the first missions with Team 10, where the successes ended in a celebration and the failures tasted of anger and tears barely held back. She thought back to that time and, suddenly, she realized that moments like those had never belonged to the boy in front of her. To that man, with the face of _an adolescent_.

That leader's eyes sparkled as he unbuttoned his jacket. " _You know_ … I've never met anyone from outside the village who knew so much about my family... but I think you're right, _even though_... even though I can't explain why: my siblings would probably be better leaders than me."

_ Please, Gaara... don’t think about that! _

The kunoichi's mouth was shaken by the urge to say that observation aloud, but she remained silent, clenching her fists on her knees, accepting the gift of the jacket with which the ninja protected her burned shoulders, rosier than the emotions that were shown on her cheeks. 

The boy scrutinized her gently, even worried by her apprehensive expression, unable to guess the origin of her discomfort: he was apparently unconcerned by the cuts through which he was crossed. The wounds were similar to river beds, some burnt by sun, which continued right into his short-sleeved shirt, staining his skin with dried and fresh blood.

"It's… _odd_... if you weren't risking a sunstroke, I'd say it's almost… _funny_ : I've never seen anyone arrive here without an adequate equipment... I’m curious: what brings you here, of all the places?" Ino pressed her lips and shoulders at the same time, curling up inside the fabric of his jacket, impregnated with a plant and marine smell she had already experienced. It comforted her. It scared her.

_ How far can I go without causing some major problems... _

__

The future head of the Yamanaka clan interrupted her reasoning: those who knew how to use the _hiden_ _technique_ of her family, were careful not to brood too intensely on what could happen in the mind.

_ “It’s bad for you, it’s bad for whose you take control of. Your wit and guts should be your best advisor”  _ her father’s voice resonated, offering her a smile which disappeared quickly. She didn’t need to linger anymore.

So she spoke, no longer bothering to sound convincing. She followed the instinct and the soul that flickered in that artificial representation of reality, yet from which their true feelings could gush out.

"I came here because… I learned of a young man, the _youngest son of the Fourth Kazekage_ … who apparently lived in solitude... with no one to _rely on_ " the kunoichi whispered, ignoring the burning pain caused by the sunstroke. For brief moments, before she decided to stare at the ground, Gaara's face impressed his conflicting feelings in her blue eyes, which did nothing but underline how much that illusory world had grown on the phobias and past of Sunagakure’s leader.

"I thought ... _I believed_ that, _maybe_ … that young man would’ve liked… _a friend_ " she stated candidly. Her face was hot and the blue irises were trembling. Inside them, her heart seemed to be beating as she regained the power to glimpse at the ninja beside herself: serious, amazed, upset, saddened, angry. A long series of emotions gripped his delicate features.

Then, in an instant, _hope_ settled in his face, as that dazzling landscape changed, restoring the bare rocks of the desert, the lonely cacti and the long shadows of a setting sun, which was stepping aside from that world where it wasn’t the master. The latter was only the Kazekage, with those fleeting emotions worn within the contours of his pale face, like they were enclosed behind the edges of a wax mask.

Ino shivered, unable to understand the reason of her reverence, nor why Gaara seemed so terrified and relieved by her words. She witnessed his hand rising to her face, his fingers trying to push a lock behind her ears. The young woman prayed that that moment would come soon, that the Kazekage would recognize her face and feel joy for not being the protagonist of that story where his village hated him, where his family had _the warmth of a restrained hug_.

But their hopes were just a mirage. Ino cursed herself, for not having understood before that that oasis wasn’t outside a nightmare’s boundaries.

A red, _sanguineous_ glare appeared on the horizon behind Gaara. It looked like two eyes. It could have been a trick of Ino's mind, a whim of her not quite subsided fears. However, it was enough to stop the Kazekage's hand. It was enough to erase his smile.

It was enough to unleash the adrenaline in the blood and the panic with which to keep it in circulation.

A gust of wind whipped them. It raised sand everywhere, drying their faces now devoid of expression and heat. The air had a cold, _glacial_ , touch, although the environment was pervaded by an oppressive hot weather. Ino felt the most disparate things like in a dream, but that wasn’t what preoccupied her.

Gaara had averted his eyes from her and shuddered at the desert behind them, where the girl had seen that red look. A strange rustle, similar to a screaming voice, accompanied the currents, adorned with sand, that were reaching them.

When the boy met her gaze he was, again, completely captivated by illusions.

" _I'm sorry ... I ... I have to go!_ " the kunoichi foresaw and quickly held him to the ground, before he could run away and she could no longer find him. "Why? What happened?!" she exclaimed trying to look at the young man, but there wasn’t any trace of serenity in that personal sky of his. He was in a hurry. _The one of a hunted animal_.

" _They’re here ... I can't stay_!" Thus replying hastily, with a cracked tone, Gaara yanked his arm from Ino's grip, which closed in the air. She couldn't understand what had happened, or why he stared at her with a hint of shame, even guilt in that now red-tinted face.

" _I'm sorry..._ " she heard him mutter as he fled. Still confused by the situation, the kunoichi was able to pick up a clue in time, so that she wouldn’t lose sight of the Kazekage and could chase him in that shapeless environment, due to the sandstorm that seemed to have haunted them in here.

She concentrated on the advancing wind, narrowing her eyes to prevent the sand from blinding her. In performing the gesture, her senses sharpened, allowing her hearing to grasp what those gusts brought with them, in the form of an atmospheric event.

They were voices... _unknown and well-known_.

Ino widened her eyes and immediately bolted behind the Kazekage, who now was like a point on the sandy horizon. The young woman ran with difficulty, but not because of the ground on which she was rushing. The voices she heard _weighed_ on her steps.

_ Murderer... you’re a monster! _

_ The Kazekage should have killed you with his own hands! _

_ Poor little brother... did you really think we loved you? _

The kunoichi felt the tears run down her cheeks and her conscience almost disappeared in the midst of so much indistinct shouting. In vain, she tried to chase away the shadows of Gaara's soul, separating them from both of them, but her attempts were greeted by a laugh echoing in that furious wind, or by carmine reflections beyond sandstorm’s darkness. But only thanks to the voices that flowed freely from Gaara’s mind, the girl was able to figure out the witch’s presence, or those nightmares that had the power _to suffocate_ her and _to drag_ her thoughts into a sea of  shadows.

Ino would’ve liked to surrender. She, _really_ , would’ve liked to avoid that worthless pile of negativity, before it overwhelmed herself. Yet she resisted, forcing her sight to remain intact.

Gaara was over there, a little closer, also slowed down by the fury of the hurricane-force wind made of anguish, sadness and panic. Ino always heard its vocal emanations, built by different tones and people.

_ Did you really think we could forgive you? You… who deprived us of our sweet Karura? You… who let our loyal Yashamaru die!? _

Ino regained control over herself, acquiring again her senses. She gritted her teeth with fury. With a last surge of consciousness, the young woman crossed the border towards which the Kazekage had disappeared.

The wonder overwhelmed her, fortunately mitigating the effect of the voices on her, capable, she was sure, of fatally hurting any soul that remained immersed in it for too long. She understood why Gaara was covered by streams of blood. The girl's body, now more stable in that mind vision, pursed her lips under a cage made by her teeth.

_ A sea of  _ _ _ _ cacti... _

__

She swallowed hard, throwing herself into that new scene created by the corrupt imagination of the young leader. Huge cacti rose from the ground, dense like impassable walls, from which an equally impenetrable myriad of thorns stood out. Gaara was struggling to enter it, although the storm had stopped pursuing him in that forest of pain.

Ino walked slowly through it, avoiding the thorns’ sting with caution, but no matter how hard she tried, the Kazekage traversed those obstacles unconsciously. They were now close, as if they were at the beginning of their brief conversation.

" _Gaara ... please ... stop_!" the girl screamed, yet her words fell silent, as if the plants absorbed their volume. And the boy couldn't, _or didn't want to_ , hear her voice.

Ino was beginning to feel fear in every fibre. She didn’t have a sufficient mental strength, which could lift both of them from that vision of spurs. The kunoichi was starting to frighten herself, but then she saw the blood from which the thorns were stained. She heard the Kazekage's exhausted moans.

Realizing all of that, understanding the inner suffering from which Gaara had so often escaped for the love of his people, the expression of the Yamanaka’s heir hardened. The chakra enveloped that figure created by thoughts, equal to her real aspect.

_ No, witch… I won't let you have him! _

With an effort beyond any of her human abilities, derived solely from the desire to save that boy whom was suffering in that lucid nightmare, Ino took a breath from her subconscious, until her will rose straight, _proud_ , imposing itself on the illusions artfully constructed to wound, _to kill_ , the soul of the Kazekage.

She bended cacti’s shape, detached them from the ninja in pain, pushed them to the limits of their perception. The authority through which she gave those commands made that vision more unstable, less effective in its poisonous aims. The young man was able to distance himself from it. Ino was happy, struck by an irrepressible joy.

But it didn't last long. As soon as the young man left that part of the mind, a huge number of thorns _pierced her_. The poison of sorrow exacerbated her self-awareness.

Ino shouted in pain, through lungs that no longer existed due to that new instability. She was in a universe constructed to torture its guests, guided by a red glimmer of eyes that appeared and disappeared in the mind flooded with suffering.

_ You’re such a fool! You’re just unable to do anything! _

_ I would love to know who put a worthless kunoichi like her in the team of the Third Hokage’s son…  _

_ If, at least, you were as smart as Sakura... _

_ Were you really deluded enough to believe that Sasuke or Sai could fall for you, Ino-pig? _

Screams, tears, blood and sweat overflowed from the girl, even if there was no longer a body as a reference for her sensations. She had ended up in a nothingness of thoughts that didn’t belong to her, even though they reminded her of something dormant in the depths of her soul. They tore her apart at the command of a presence _stronger than her own_. A creature capable of governing the darkness of the human soul through its most intimate memories.

Nocnitsa's bony fingers penetrated the grip of pain, hooking it. Imprisoned in such a great negative experience, it was almost bearable to sense that being clang to her, _wearing the smile of a monster_ , chaining her to fear as if the witch was cursing her.

Then, from that essence's dry lips, harnessed with sharp teeth, the sweetest of voices arrived to Ino. _The most horrible of sentences_.

_ Ino ... did you really think you could do it? _

__

_ Dad… _

Ino's eyes wept, if there were still sockets from which a stream of tears could escape. Nocnitsa's mouth came closer, widening over an immense darkness...

A hand led her away from that grip. Ino took a painful breath. She was again in possession of a pair of lungs which could support her.

In the desert, now regenerating in front of her, Gaara scrutinized her furiously. In his blue irises a storm seemed to thunder. Stress was taking out his breath. " _Fool_... why did you chase me?!"

Ino started, taken aback by the harshness of his voice. They had returned to the middle of the cacti’s forest, but they were in a sort of clearing, where the plants enclosed them, sealing every opening with sharp thorns.

The kunoichi couldn't answer. A strangled moan escaped her, her body not accustomed to that harsh return to _normality_. Gaara helped her to sit in the centre of that clearing. She hadn't realized she had fallen to the ground.

"You almost died to reach me... _the cacti were dismembering you_!" Ino opened her eyes wide and turned back, where her cocoon of sorrow had turned into  thorns soiled with her blood.

_ So... it all happened inside my head… _

Her understanding was held back by a series of stabbing pains. In a flash, the effects of Nocnitsa's near-death grip grasped her, slashing her skin with various cuts, which let blood stream down her arms and shoulders. Ino knew that it was all artificial, that her body wasn't really affected by those wounds. However, like Gaara's lacerations, they were much more than corporal injuries: they were the manifestation of the weakness of her spirit, _the instability of her being_.

Ino blanched, sensing her own instinct rebelling against that sorrow. Her survival instinct commanded her to get out of that dangerous mind, _quickly_.

Gaara walked over to her, gently taking her arm. "Damn it! At this rate you will bleed to death! _Just let me_ … ” the chakra lit up his hand, but Ino was quicker. She slapped it away from the wounds he wanted to heal. This time, the young woman didn’t bestow compassion for the shinobi's offended expression.

“Have you lost your mind? If you heal me in these conditions, _you’ll surely die_!" she erupted wheezing. Her heart was beating like it had tachycardia. _Oh my god... All of this negativity will transform us in two amoebas full of anger! I need to find a solution, quickly…_

Ino bit her lip, searching for the words to continue, but Gaara beat her good intentions in speed. "You keep saying it, but _the situation doesn’t change_ : I won’t let you die from stupid wounds you’ve caused yourself to reach me!" the girl would have found admirable, even gallant, such a display of self-sacrifice. But that trip into the Kazekage's head was spoiling her sentimental side.

“If you didn't want to risk it, _you shouldn't have squeezed yourself in here_! Or do you think I'm blind and I can't see the cuts that cover you?! "she snapped venomously, already feeling her cheeks red for her own impudence. She almost expected the Suna’s leader to answer in a bad way, since he seemed almost in control of himself, or, at the very least, of his icy authority.

Instead, he remained silent. Ino looked up at him, after hiding her face in a corner of his jacket, for fear of the shinobi’s reaction.

Gaara didn’t look at her. He watched the cacti above their heads, the world of which he kept the key and of which, however, didn’t know the existence. He observed with those blue eyes of his, with a sad smile of a prisoner. A new grip clasped the girl's soul, like painful pincers.

" _I’m sorry_... I shouldn't have..." He shook his head, stopping her voice. "You know... these are _the closest friends that I have_ " Ino stared at the Kazekage, blown away by that submissive voice, by a fear that hovered over his demure spirit.

“They are… _they are just like me_ ” the kunoichi witnessed Gaara stood up, gazing at the long, sharp thorns that surround them. The young man felt the slender surface, letting his fingers slide over it.

"They’re beautiful... _impressive_... but you just need to get closer _and_..." the hand fell from the thorn to his side. Strands of fresh blood adorned his knuckles like a torn glove.

" _They are just like me_..." he repeated in a low voice. Ino widened her eyes. Suddenly, she understood. Suddenly, she grasped what was hidden in the shadows of Gaara.

_ Now I know... Now I know how to get us back to our senses! _

__

Ino took a deep breath, the same one with which she had saved Suna’s leader from that forest of thorns. This time, however, it was not to manipulate, but to create: from the memories they both knew, the girl modelled a familiar shape, with an intimate touch stolen from the souls of Temari and Kankurō, into which she had often slipped, over the course of a few hours.

Perhaps for this reason, the little gymnocalycium stood out in those pain-discoloured images.

"I'm not saying they can't be your friends ... I also believe that plants can listen better than many people!" Ino laughed as she mulled over her days with the plants in her family shop, when Sakura spent the afternoons at Tsunade's mercy, or when Shikamaru and Chōji were too busy lazing around to help with her training. The girl remembered the murmurs with which she vented her frustration and the flowers that, silently, grasped her sentences while they were sun-drenched. They were so beautiful, perfumed and bent as if they were intent on drinking her words, instead of the water, that the girl couldn’t say anything grim about those people by whom she was ignored.

_ After all… I only need a flower to be happy. _

The flower on top of the gymnocalycium was gorgeous. When Ino approached Gaara, even he was impressed. Memories travelled in his eyes, an ancient river in which the waters had the sweet taste of friendship. Ino was moved and her heart pounded as she brought the Kazekage's hand over the colourful flower. He always had that warmth of which the kunoichi had felt the pleasant caress when she awakened.

"But if you don't take care of them… _they’ll grow until they’ll take your breath away_ " from the corolla of petals, she ran Gaara's hand over the thorns. Those tenacious thorns that, however, knew how to bend gently, if pressed with a delicate touch.

_ Without the strength of Temari's remorse. _

The kunoichi swallowed. The boy's fingers were frailer than she imagined, even in those thoughts.

"But if you look after them... if you put your heart and soul into them… _they won’t hurt you, anymore_ " and those fingers, without calluses like Kankurō's hands, squeezed her palm. Ino saw her secret request granted, namely to understand how such delicate hands could grasp her fingers vigorously, to the point of inducing a shiver down her spine. Or it was the boy's eyes, focused on her spirit, that directed that warm feeling, once again, on her cheeks. However, this time, the kunoichi couldn’t hide her red face in the jacket that Gaara had offered her earlier. She let him study her and she also let him search her features for that hidden truth.

She swallowed hard. Instinctively, the young woman only uttered one sentence: "Gaara ... don't let self-pity ruin you."

She didn’t expect an answer, nor a question as to why she knew his name, even if he hadn’t revealed it to her. It was another solution that he needed.

" _Who_... who gave me _this cactus_?" Gaara was bending over her, with half-closed lashes, but Ino wasn’t afraid. In contrast, she almost felt hope.

Without realizing it, she made her biggest mistake.

"His name was _Yashamaru_ , Gaara ... and he was _your mother's brother_ " the sand that surrounded them was neither violent nor blown by the wind. It only imitated the fluttering of Ino's heart that tolled every second of that long moment. The gymnocalycium had fallen from her hands and rolled away, immersed in memory.

Gaara's lips were pressed against hers. _This wasn’t real_. It was only the semblance of what their minds experienced in the absence of a body. Yet, Ino wanted to sense them more, she wanted Gaara to hold her as she had grabbed his shirt collar to feel him closer. _It was just a façade_ , a union that didn’t concern each other outside their minds.

Gaara read her thoughts like an open book. He extrapolated information on what had happened from the instant he disappeared in the sandstorm. He saw Temari and her story, Kakashi and his coldness, Kankurō and his anger. He could see Ino and her resolve, with which she had dashed into his mind, defeating doubts. He witnessed the battle she had undertaken with Nocnitsa, where they wounded each other.

At that point, Gaara pressed her arms, wrapping her in an embrace in which she didn’t feel any pain, despite the still open wounds. The chakra scattered on them and soothed the lacerations, the burning form of their griefs. Ino felt pushed towards the Kazekage and she fell into his arms, abandoning the kiss.

_ "I apologize, Yamanaka Ino… you shouldn't have gone through all of this." _

The girl shook her head, raising her face to Gaara. The boy's voice wasn’t hesitant, nor his eyes revealed fear. It was the Fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure who stared at her from his dignified position, with a faint smile that didn’t appear on his eyes. For the kunoichi, it was still _fine_ : he was the man she had been looking for in the darkness created by Nocnitsa.

"I’ve done it gladly, _Kazekage_... I’ve felt the need to silence my idiot boss" a laugh that barely moved his ribcage, almost like a hiccup. Ino was happy that Gaara had returned, that he had awakened from that nightmare. She was so enchanted that she was afraid to leave and never come back.

_ I'll have to settle for treasuring these moments... _

She smiled, giving him a last vigorous hug. Her heart was echoing heavily. " _Come on now, Kazekage…_ they need you out of here!" Ino grinned with a conspiratorial look, yet she got no result from that exhortation. The young man didn’t stare at her. He watched the cacti above their heads, with a strange… _nostalgia_. Then, the kunoichi _understood_.

A rush of terror ran through her. Her thoughts reverberated in her memory. Warnings that she, herself, hadn’t respected.

_ Without the due precautions... I can’t know in what state he’ll come back to his senses! _

__

" _Kazekage_!" Ino exclaimed, but Gaara put a hand in front of her mouth, preventing her from continuing her speaking. “I… I’m grateful, _Yamanaka Ino_. What you did for Temari and Kankurō... What you did _for me_ … I don’t think many would’ve done it" he lowered himself on her ear, giving her a pang of disgusting pain, for that proximity comparable to the path of two parallel rivers.

"Maybe... nobody would’ve gone through _that_ " he clang to her shoulders, then he returned to stand straight. His gaze was dark, shadowed, within the strong lines of his dark circles.

_ No, Gaara... _

Ino's tears fell copiously on those fingers that sealed her lips. A barrier worse than Nocnitsa's attempts to kill her, because they were perpetrated by the man she hoped to save.

"You don’t have to cry... you gave me one last memory to be happy about... _I’ll cherish it_ " the boy's static expression had a jolt of pain. He looked at the finger that Ino had bitten, freeing her mouth from the grip.

"Kazekage... _Gaara_... you can't be serious!" the young woman spoke ignoring the respect, or barriers that existed between her and the heir of that position once occupied by his father. Temari's conviction was affirmed in her eyes, Kankurō's frustration in her clenched teeth. But it was his heart that gave life to the words with which she expressed herself: "After all that your people have been through... after all that your siblings have felt... _After all that I’ve gone through_... _how can you talk like it didn’t mean anything_?!" the kunoichi gasped as the Kazekage's fingers fell from her face. The movement didn’t correspond to a change in the situation.

"You know... I think you're giving too much importance to things, _Ino_ " he uttered, swiping the blood off the finger where the bite mark was beginning to emerge. "Everything about me... _is completely pointless._ "

Gaara's eyes fell on her and, immediately, before she could scold him, the sand grabbed her legs and arms, chaining her on site. In a different, _less hostile environment_ , the heir of the Yamanaka clan could easily have fought such a harmless offensive, but it wasn't just sand that held her back.

She sensed the weight of the Suna leader's orders, the silent sentence with which he forced her to lose touch with the things of that world.

_ Go away. _

__

"No Gaara ... I won't do it!" the kunoichi howled, as she tumbled down the weight of the sand. She was submerged in it, wrapped like a too tight dress. Only her gaze, blue and clear like the boy's one, stood out from the darkness of that cocoon of sand. The same figure of Gaara now emerged among the shadows that were swallowing everything. That darkness smelled faintly of rotten leaves and earth.

"It's not something you can decide, _Ino_... _It was already my fate… for a long time I’ve denied it_."

"So, you’ll just go away, abandoning your people to death!?" snarled the kunoichi from under her sand cage. She saw a sad smile in response, with words that made her shiver: "If I go down my path... there’ll be nobody to threaten them"

Ino started, but couldn’t say anything: the dust had insinuated in her nostrils, making her cough. She saw the personal, _bright_ , sky of Gaara, devoid of any shade, closing beyond the lids.

"After Yashamaru... _after her_..." even in the blindness of the senses, Ino heard a sob in Gaara's throat. It was one of the last glimpses the kunoichi noticed of that boy, farther and farther away.

" _Temari wasn’t wrong in desiring it_."

The darkness closed over them, imprisoning them in two separate nightmares. The last words Ino heard were a gift she was desperately struggling against.

_ Go away, Ino of the Yamanaka clan. I'll make sure this creature doesn't bother you. _

__

_ You idiot... that's just what that witch wants! _

Her voice sounded powerful, although it was empty, thrown into that nowhere where she was overwhelmed by the pain of having noticed Gaara crying, just before his figure disappeared.

_ Stupid… how can you think even half of what you’ve said?! _

Ino suspected that this was an obstacle that could be overcome, that she could still recover that boy with a kind soul, whose presence she had glimpsed in the maze of that unconscious, overburdened with horrendous images. But the sand forced and inhibited her. She could almost feel her real breath reaching her lungs.

At that point _she tried to see again_ , even if the shadows were too many, even if she was afraid of what they concealed. Ino had never done anything like it, nothing that required such a great sacrifice on the part of others. The kunoichi strengthened the grip of her fingers on her palms, perceiving an already similar touch to those present in her sleeping body, which would return conscious in a matter of seconds. She could even see the discoloured blood stains with which a friend had soiled her hands. A sister prepared to do everything in her power.

_ Temari… please… help me! _

__

Her call roared from her heart and around her appearance. It was strong enough to sweep the sand as if it was just dust on a shelf. That cry became an unstoppable wind, swift and icy. It dispersed the suffocating smell of Nocnitsa, the vision of her red eyes in the dark.

Struck by the momentum of that unexpected gust, taken aback by that icy whirlwind, Ino was overcome by her own frailties. She fell into the darkness, where the memory of Gaara's fingers on her skin and his gaze lost in guilt awaited her.

As in a glimmer of hope, she felt the warmth of his father's embrace and his voice, like a sweet caress.

_ You’re my girl, Ino… only you can do it! _

**_ Continued in Chapter VI: So it is in the mind, as it is outside of me _ **

**Author's Note:**

> My first story on this site. Feel free to let me know if I made any mistakes. I'm here to learn, to improve and to give certain characters some deserved love.


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